IN   KOREA 

WITH 

MARQUIS  ITO 


IN   KOREA 

WITH 

MARQUIS  ITO 


PART  I 
A  NARRATIVE    OF    PERSONAL   EXPERIENCES 

PART  II 
A   CRITICAL   AND    HISTORICAL    INQUIRY 


BY 

GEORGE  TRUMBULL  LADD,  LL.D. 

n 


LONGMANS,    GREEN    &CO. 
LONDON    ::    ::    ::    ::    ::    ::      ::        :     :     1908 


Copyright,  1908,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons,  for  the 
United  States  of  America 


Printed  by  the  Scribner  Press 
New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


TO   THE 

DEAR    COMPANION 

OF    ITS    EXPERIENCES    AND    THE 

READY    SCRIBE    OF    MUCH    OF    ITS    MANUSCRIPT 

THIS     BOOK     IS     GRATEFULLY 

AND    AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 


253252 


PREFACE 

THE  contents  and  purposes  of  this  volume  may  be  con- 
veniently classified  under  three  heads;  for  here  are  statements 
of  fact,  expressions  of  opinion,  and  certain  ventures  into  the 
realm  of  conjecture.  The  statements  of  fact  are,  almost 
without  exception,  made  on  grounds  of  personal  observation, 
or  on  the  authority  of  the  most  competent  and  trustworthy 
first-hand  witnesses.  For  the  earlier  periods  of  the  history 
of  the  relations,  friendly  or  hostile,  between  Japan  and 
Korea,  these  authorities  are  indeed  no  longer  living,  and  they 
cannot  be  subjected  to  cross-questioning.  But  the  choice 
between  the  truth  they  told  and  the  mistakes  and  falsehoods 
of  a  contradictory  character  is  in  most  cases  not  difficult  to 
make.  For  events  of  the  present  generation  the  reader  will 
find  the  statements  of  the  witnesses  quoted,  and  of  the  docu- 
ments cited,  to  be  in  general  unimpeachable.  I  believe, 
then,  that  what  is  claimed  to  be  truth  of  fact  in  this  book  is 
as  nearly  exact  and  worthy  of  implicit  confidence  as  it  is 
ordinarily  given  to  human  beings  to  be  in  matters  pertaining 
to  the  history  of  human  affairs. 

In  expressing  my  own  opinions  as  to  the  truth  or  untruth 
of  certain  contentions,  and  as  to  the  merit  or  demerit  of  cer- 
tain transactions,  I  have  uniformly  tried  to  base  these  opin- 
ions upon  the  fullest  obtainable  knowledge  of  the  facts.  In 
some  cases  the  judgments  at  which  I  have  been  compelled 
to  arrive  contradict  those  which  have  been  and  still  are  widely 
current;  in  some  cases  they  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  interpreted 
as  an  impeachment  of  other  writers  who  have  had  either  a 


viii  PREFACE 

narrator's  interest  only  in  the  same  events  or  even  a  more 
substantial  concernment.  I  have  no  wish  to  deny  the  apol- 
ogetic character  of  this  book.  But  at  every  point  the  charge 
of  being  swerved  from  the  truth  by  prejudice  may  be  met 
with  these  replies:  First,  very  unusual  opportunities  were 
afforded  the  author  for  ascertaining  the  truth;  and,  second, 
in  almost  every  case  where  the  evidence  brought  forward 
seems  insufficient  there  is  much  more  of  the  same  sort  of 
evidence  already  in  his  possession,  and  still  more  to  be  had 
for  the  asking.  But  in  these  days  one  must  limit  the  size  of 
such  undertakings.  Few  readers  wish  to  wade  through  a 
long  stretch  of  shoals  in  order  to  reach  the  firm  ground  of 
historical  verity. 

As  to  the  ventures  at  conjecture  which  are  sparingly  put 
forth,  let  them  be  rated  at  their  seeming  worth,  after  the  facts 
have  been  carefully  studied  and  the  opinions  weighed,  which 
have  called  out  these  ventures.  They  are  confessedly  only 
entitled  to  a  claim  for  a  certain  degree,  higher  or  lower,  of 
probability.  The  status  of  all  things  in  the  Far  East — and 
for  the  matter  of  that,  all  over  the  civilized  world — is  just 
now  so  unstable  and  loaded  with  uncertainties  that  no  human 
insight  can  penetrate  to  the  centre  of  the  forces  at  work,  and 
no  human  foresight  can  look  far  into  the  future. 

The  division  of  the  book  into  two  parts  may  seem  at  first 
sight  to  injure  its  unity.  Such  a  division  has  for  its  result,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  a  somewhat  abrupt  change  in  the  char- 
acter of  the  material  employed  and  in  the  style  of  its  handling. 
The  First  Part  is  a  narrative  of  personal  observations  and 
experiences.  It  gives  the  results,  however,  of  a  serious  study 
of  a  complicated  situation;  and  it  pronounces  more  or  less 
confident  judgments  upon  a  number  of  subordinate  questions 
involved  in  the  general  problem  of  establishing  satisfactory 
relations  between  two  nations  which  are  inseparably  bound 
together — physically,  socially,  politically — whether  for  the 


PREFACE  ix 

weal  or  for  the  woe  of  both.  In  the  Second  Part  the  attempt 
is  made  to  submit  these  judgments  to  the  tests  of  history. 
But  what  is  history?  Of  no  other  civilized  country  than 
Korea  is  the  truth  of  the  cynical  saying  more  obvious  that 
much  of  what  has  been  written  as  history  is  lies,  arid  that  most 
of  real  history  is  unwritten.  All  of  which  has  tended  to  make 
the  writer  duly  appreciate  the  unspeakable  advantage  of 
having  access  to  authentic  information  which,  for  diplomatic 
and  other  sufficient  reasons,  has  not  hitherto  been  made 
public. 

The  underlying  literary  and  logical  unity  which  binds  to- 
gether the  two  seemingly  diverse  Parts  of  the  one  book  is 
made  clear  by  stating  in  general  terms  the  problem  upon 
which  it  aims  to  throw  light.  This  problem  concerns  the 
relations  to  be  established  between  Japan  and  Korea — a 
question  which  has  for  centuries  been  proposed  in  various 
imperative  and  even  affective  ways  to  both  these  nations. 
It  is  also  a  question  which  has  several  times  disturbed  greatly 
the  entire  Orient,  and  the  recent  phases  of  which  have  come 
near  to  upsetting  the  expectations  and  more  deliberate  plans 
of  the  entire  civilized  world.  To  lay  the  foundations,  under 
greatly  and  suddenly  changed  conditions,  of  a  satisfactory 
and  permanent  peace,  one  of  the  greatest  statesmen  of  the 
Orient  is  giving — with  all  his  mind  and  heart — the  later 
years  of  his  eventful  life.  I  hope  that  this  book  may  make 
its  readers  know  somewhat  better  what  the  problem  has 
been  and  is;  and  what  Prince  Ito,  as  Japanese  Resident- 
General  in  Korea,  is  trying  to  accomplish  for  its  solution. 

It  remains  for  the  Preface  only  to  acknowledge  the  author's 
obligations.  These  are  so  special  to  one  person — namely, 
Mr.  D.  W.  Stevens,  who  has  been  for  some  time  official 
"Adviser  to  the  Korean  Council  of  State  and  Counsellor  to 
the  Resident- General" — that  without  his  generous  and  pains- 
taking assistance  in  varied  ways  the  Second  Part  of  the  book 


x  PREFACE 

could  never  have  appeared  in  its  present  form.  It  is  hoped 
that  this  general  acknowledgment  will  serve  to  cover  many 
cases  where  Mr.  Stevens'  name  is  not  especially  mentioned 
in  connection  with  the  text.  Grateful  acknowledgment  is 
also  made  to  Mr.  Furuya,  the  private  secretary  of  the  Resi- 
dent-General, for  his  painstaking  translation  from  the  orig- 
inal Japanese  or  Chinese  official  documents;  to  Mr.  M. 
Zumoto,  editor  of  the  Seoul  Press,  for  varied  information  on 
many  subjects;  and  to  Dr.  George  Heber  Jones  for  facts  and 
suggestions  imparted  in  conversation  and  embodied  in  writ- 
ings of  his.  My  obligations  to  the  Resident- General  himself, 
for  the  perfectly  untrammelled  and  unprejudiced  opportunity, 
with  its  complete  freedom  to  ask  all  manner  of  questions, 
which  his  invitation  afforded,  are,  I  trust,  sufficiently  empha- 
sized in  the  title  of  the  book.  Other  debts  to  writers  upon 
any  part  of  the  field  are  acknowledged  in  their  proper  con- 
nections. 

GEORGE  TRUMBULL  LADD. 


HAYAMA,  JAPAN, 
September,  1907. 


CONTENTS 
CONTENTS  OF  PART  I 

:HAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  INVITATION i 

II.  FIRST  GLIMPSES  OF  KOREA 15 

III.  LIFE  IN  SEOUL 37 

IV.  LIFE  IN  SEOUL  (Continued) 65 

V.  THE  VISIT  TO  PYENG-YANG 90 

VI.    CHEMULPO  AND  OTHER  PLACES 112 

VII.    THE  DEPARTURE 139 

VIII.    PERSONAL  REMINISCENCES  AND  IMPRESSIONS  148 


CONTENTS  OF  PART  II 

IX.  THE  PROBLEM:  HISTORICAL 179 

X.  THE  PROBLEM:  HISTORICAL  (Continued)    .     .222 

XI.  THE  COMPACT .  252 

XII.  RULERS  AND  PEOPLE 280 

XIII.  RESOURCES  AND  FINANCE    .......  300 


PART  I 


A  NARRATIVE  OF  PERSONAL 
EXPERIENCES 


IN    KOREA  WITH    MARQUIS   ITO 

PART  I 
CHAPTER  I 

THE   INVITATION 

IT  was  in  early  August  of  1906  that  I  left  New  Haven  for  a 
third  visit  to  Japan.  Travelling  by  the  way  of  the  Great 
Lakes  through  Duluth  and  St.  Paul,  after  a  stay  of  two  weeks 
in  Seattle,  we  took  the  Japanese  ship  Aki  Maru  for  Yoko- 
hama, where  we  arrived  just  before  the  port  was  closed  for 
the  night  of  September  20.  Since  this  ship  was  making  its 
first  trip  after  being  released  from  transport  service  in  con- 
veying the  Japanese  troops  home  from  Manchuria,  and  was 
manned  by  officers  who  had  personal  experiences  of  the  war 
to  narrate,  the  voyage  was  one  of  uncommon  interest.  Cap- 
tain Yagi  had  been  in  command  of  the  transport  ship  Kinshu 
Maru  when  it  was  sunk  by  the  Russians,  off  the  northeastern 
coast  of  Korea.  He  had  then  been  carried  to  Vladivostok, 
and  subsequently  to  Russia,  where  he  remained  in  prison 
until  the  end  of  the  war.  Among  the  various  narratives  to 
which  I  listened  with  interest  were  the  two  following;  they 
are  repeated  here  because  they  illustrate  the  code  of  honor 
whose  spirit  so  generally  pervaded  the  army  and  navy  of 
Japan  during  their  contest  with  their  formidable  enemy.  It 
is  in  reliance  on  the  triumph  of  this  code  that  those  who  know 
the  nation  best  are  hopeful  of  its  ability  to  overcome  the  diffi- 


a.'  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

culties  which  are  being  encountered  in  the  effort  to  establish 
a  condition  favorable  to  safety,  peace,  and  prosperity  by  a 
Japanese  Protectorate  over  Korea. 

At  Vladivostok  the  American  Consul  pressed  upon  Captain 
Yagi  a  sum  of  money  sufficient  to  provide  a  more  suitable 
supply  of  food  during  his  journey  by  rail  to  Russia.  This 
kindly  offer  was  respectfully  declined  on  the  sentimental 
ground  that,  as  an  officer  of  Japan,  he  could  not  honorably  re- 
ceive from  a  stranger  a  loan  which  it  was  altogether  likely  he 
would  never  be  able  to  repay.  But  when  still  further  urged, 
although  he  continued  to  decline  the  money,  he  begged  only 
the  Consul's  card,  "lest  he  might  himself  forget  the  name  or 
die,"  and  so  his  Government  would  be  unable  to  acknowledge 
the  kindness  shown  to  one  of  its  officers.  The  card  was  given, 
sent  to  Tokyo,  and — as  the  Captain  supposed — the  Consul 
was  "thanked  officially."  The  first  officer,  an  Englishman, 
who  had  been  in  the  service  of  Japan  on  the  Aki  Maru,  while 
it  was  used  for  transporting  troops  to  Manchuria  and  prison- 
ers on  its  return,  told  this  equally  significant  story.  His  ship 
had  brought  to  Japan  as  prisoner  the  Russian  officer  second 
in  command  at  the  battle  of  Nan-san.  Having  been  wounded 
in  the  foot,  the  Russian  was,  after  his  capture,  carried  for  a 
long  distance  by  Japanese  soldiers,  to  whom,  when  they 
reached  the  hospital  tent,  he  offered  a  $20  gold-piece.  But 
they  all  refused  to  receive  money  from  a  wounded  foe.  "  If  it 
had  been  Russian  soldiers,"  said  this  officer  of  his  own  coun- 
trymen, "they  would  not  only  have  taken  this  money  but 
would  have  gone  through  my  pockets  besides." 

Before  leaving  home  only  two  official  invitations  had  been 
received,  namely,  to  lecture  on  Education  before  the  teachers 
in  the  Tokyo  branch  of  the  Imperial  Educational  Society;  and 
to  give  a  course  in  the  Imperial  University  of  Kyoto,  on  a 
topic  which  it  was  afterward  decided  should  be  the  "Philoso- 
phy of  Religion."  This  university  was  to  open  in  the  fol- 


THE   INVITATION  3 

lowing  autumn  a  Department  of  Philosophy  (such  a  forward 
movement  having  been  delayed  by  the  war  with  Russia). 
Almost  immediately  on  our  arrival,  a  multitude  of  requests 
for  courses  of  lectures  and  public  addresses  came  to  the  com- 
mittee in  charge  of  the  arrangements,  with  the  result  that  the 
six  months  from  October  i,  1906,  to  April  i,  1907,  were 
crowded  full  of  interesting  and  enjoyable  work.  In  the  inter- 
vals of  work,  however,  there  was  opportunity  left  for  much 
valuable  social  intercourse  and  for  meeting  with  men  like 
Togo,  Oyama,  Noghi,  and  others  in  military  and  business,  as 
well  as  educational  circles,  whose  names  and  deeds  are  well 
known  all  over  the  civilized  world.  But  it  is  not  the  narrative 
of  these  six  months  which  is  before  us  at  the  present  time,  al- 
though doubtless  they  had  a  somewhat  important  influence  in 
securing  the  opportunity  and  providing  the  preparation  for 
the  subsequent  visit  to  Korea. 

The  thought  of  seeing  something  of  the  "Hermit  King- 
dom" (a  title,  by  the  way,  which  is  no  longer  appropriate) 
had  been  in  our  minds  before  leaving  America,  only  as  a  some- 
what remote  possibility.  Not  long  after  our  arrival  in  Japan 
the  hint  was  several  times  given  by  an  intimate  friend,  who  is 
also  in  the  confidence  of  Marquis  Ito,  that  the  latter  intended, 
on  his  return  in  mid-winter  from  Seoul,  to  invite  us  to  be  his 
guests  in  his  Korean  residence.  It  was  not,  however,  until 
the  afternoon  of  December  5  that  the  invitation  was  first  re- 
ceived. This  was  at  the  garden-party  given  by  Marquis 
Nabeshima  on  his  sixty-first  birthday.  It  should  be  explained 
that  every  Japanese  is  born  under  one  of  the  twelve  signs — 
corresponding  to  our  sfgns  of  the  Zodiac.  When  five  of  these 
periods  have  been  completed  the  total  of  sixty  years  corre- 
sponds with  the  end  of  six  periods  of  ten  years  each — a  reck- 
oning which  is,  I  believe,  of  Chinese  origin.  The  fortunate 
man,  therefore,  may  be  said  to  begin  life  over  again;  and 
presents  such  as  are  ordinarily  appropriate  only  to  childhood 


4  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

are  entirely  in  order  on  such  a  festal  occasion.  While  walk- 
ing in  the  beautiful  garden,  which  is  of  Japanese  style  but 
much  modified  by  Italian  ideals,  the  private  secretary  of  Mar- 
quis Ito,  Mr.  Furuya,  came  to  us  and  announced  that  his 
chief,  who  had  recently  returned  from  Seoul  to  Japan,  was 
near  and  wished  to  see  me.  After  an  exchange  of  friendly 
greetings  almost  immediately  the  Marquis  said:  "I  am  ex- 
pecting to  see  you  in  my  own  land,  which  is  now  Korea"; 
and  when  I  jestingly  asked,  "But  is  it  safe  to  be  in  Korea?" 
(implying  some  fear  of  a  Russian  invasion  under  his  protec- 
torate) he  shook  his  fist  playfully  in  the  air  and  answered: 
"But  I  will  protect  you."  To  this  he  added,  pointing  to  his 
sword:  "You  see,  I  am  half -military  now."  The  significance 
of  the  last  remark  will  be  the  better  understood  when  it  is  re- 
membered that  from  the  days  of  his  young  manhood  to  the 
present  hour,  Ito  has  always  stood  for  the  peaceful  policy  and 
the  cultivation  of  friendly  relations  between  Japan  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  world.  For  this  reason  he  has  never  been  the  fa- 
vorite of  the  military  party;  and  he  is  to-day  opposed  in  his 
administration  of  Korean  affairs  by  those  who  would  apply 
to  them  the  mailed  hand  of  punishment  and  suppression  rather 
than  hold  out  the  friendly  but  firm  hand  of  guidance  and  help. 
Even  after  this  interview  the  real  purpose  of  the  invitation 
to  visit  Korea  was  not  evident.  A  week  later,  however,  it 
was  disclosed  by  a  visit  from  Mr.  Yamada  of  the  Japan 
Times,  who  came  from  Marquis  Ito  to  present  his  request 
more  fully  and  to  arrange  for  a  subsequent  extended  con- 
ference upon  the  subject.  I  was  then  informed,  in  a  general 
way,  how  it  was  thought  by  the  Resident-General  I  might 
be  of  help  to  him  and  to  Japan  in  solving  the  difficult  problem 
of  furthering  for  the  Koreans  themselves  the  benefits  which 
the  existing  relations  of  the  two  countries  made  it  desirable 
for  both  to  secure.  Complaints  of  various  sorts  were  con- 
stantly being  made,  not  only  against  individual  Japanese, 


THE  INVITATION  5 

but  also  against  the  Japanese  administration,  as  unjust  and 
oppressive  to  the  Koreans,  and  as  selfish  and  exclusive  toward 
other  foreigners  than  its  own  countrymen.  Especially  had 
such  complaints  of  late  been  propagated  by  American  mis- 
sionaries, either  directly  by  letters  and  newspaper  articles, 
or  more  indirectly  by  tales  told  to  travellers  who,  since  they 
were  only  passing  a  few  days  in  Korea,  had  neither  desire 
nor  opportunity  to  investigate  their  accuracy.  In  this  way, 
exaggerations  and  falsehoods  were  spread  abroad  as  freely 
as  one-sided  or  half-truths.  In  the  office  of  Resident- General 
the  Marquis  greatly  desired  to  be  absolutely  just  and  fair, 
and  to  prevent  the  mistakes,  so  harmful  both  to  Korea  and 
to  Japan,  which  followed  the  Japanese  occupation  of  Korea 
at  the  close  of  the  Chino- Japan  war.  But  it  was  difficult, 
and  in  most  cases  impossible,  for  him  even  to  find  out  what 
the  complaints  were;  they  came  to  the  public  ear  in  America 
and  England  before  he  was  able  to  get  any  indication  of 
their  existence  even.  And  when  his  attention  was  called  to 
them  in  this  roundabout  fashion,  further  difficulties,  almost 
insuperable,  intervened-  between  him  and  the  authors  of 
these  complaints;  for  in  most  cases  it  turned  out  that  the 
foreign  plaintiffs  had  no  first-hand  information  regarding  the 
truth  of  the  Korean  stories.  They  would  not  themselves 
take  the  pains  to  investigate  the  complaints,  much  less  would 
they  go  to  the  trouble  to  bring  the  attention  of  the  Resident- 
General  to  the  matters  complained  of  in  order  that  he  might 
use  his  magisterial  authority  to  remedy  them.  In  respect  to 
these,  and  certain  other  difficulties,  Marquis  Ito  thought  that 
I  might  assist  his  administration  if  I  would  spend  some  time 
upon  the  ground  as  his  guest. 

The  nature  of  this  invitation  put  upon  me  the  responsibility 
of  answering  two  questions  which  were  by  no  means  alto- 
gether easy  of  solution;  and  on  which  it  was,  from  their  very 
nature,  impossible  to  get  much  trustworthy  advice.  The 


6  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

first  of  these  concerned  my  own  fitness  for  so  delicate  and 
difficult  but  altogether  unaccustomed  work.  The  second 
raised  the  doubt  whether  I  could  in  this  way  be  more  useful 
to  Japan  and  to  humanity  than  by  carrying  out  the  original 
plan  of  spending  the  spring  months  .lecturing  in  Kiushu. 
After  consulting  with  the  few  friends  to  whom  I  could  prop- 
erly mention  the  subject,  and  reflecting  that  the  judgment  of 
His  Imperial  Majesty,  with  whom  Marquis  Itp  would  doubt- 
less confer,  as  well  as  of  the  Resident-General  himself,  might 
fairly  be  considered  conclusive,  I  accepted  the  invitation; 
but  it  was  with  mingled  feelings  of  pleasure  and  of  some- 
what painful  hesitation  as  to  how  I  should  be  able  to  succeed. 

The  illness  of  Marquis  Ito  which,  though  not  serious,  com- 
pelled him  to  retire  from  the  exciting  life  of  the  capital  city 
to  the  seaside,  and  then  to  the  hills,  prevented  my  meeting 
him  before  I  left  Tokyo  for  Kyoto  to  fulfil  my  engagements 
in  the  latter  city.  But,  by  correspondence  with  a  friend,  I 
was  kept  informed  of  the  Marquis'  plans  for  his  return  to 
Korea,  and  thus  could  govern  my  engagements  so  as  to  be 
in  the  vicinity  of  some  point  on  his  route  thither,  at  which 
the  meeting  with  him  might  take  place. 

The  expected  conference  followed  immediately  after  our 
return  from  one  of  the  most  delightful  of  the  many  gratifying 
experiences  which  came  to  us  during  our  year  in  Japan.  We 
had  taken  a  trip  to  the  village  of  Hiro  Mura,  where  formerly 
lived  Hamaguchi  Goryo,  the  benevolent  patron  of  his  village, 
whose  act  of  self-sacrifice  in  burning  his  rice  straw  in  order 
to  guide  the  bewildered  villagers  to  a  place  of  safety  when 
they  were  being  overwhelmed  by  a  tidal  wave  in  the  darkness 
of  midnight,  has  been  made  the  theme  of  one  of  Lafcadio 
Hearn's  interesting  tales.  Mr.  Hearn,  it  appears,  had  never 
visited  the  locality;  and,  indeed,  we  were  assured  that  we 
were  the  first  foreigners  who  had  ever  been  seen  in  the  village 
streets.  A  former  pupil  of  mine  is  at  the  head  of  a  flourishing 


THE  INVITATION  7 

school  patronized  by  the  Hamaguchi  family;  and  having 
accepted  his  invitation,  in  the  name  of  the  entire  region,  to 
visit  them  and  speak  to  the  school  and  to  the  teachers  of  the 
Prefecture,  the  cordial  greeting,  hospitable  entertainment, 
and  the  surpassingly  beautiful  scenery,  afforded  a  rich  reward 
for  the  three  or  four  days  of  time  required.  For,  as  to  the 
scenery,  not  the  drive  around  the  Bay  of  Naples  or  along  the 
Bosphorus  excels  in  natural  beauty  the  jinrikisha  ride  that 
surmounts  the  cliffs,  or  clings  to  their  sides,  above  the  bay  of 
Shimidzu  ("Clear  Water");  while  for  a  certain  picturesque- 
ness  of  human  interest  it  surpasses  them  both.  On  the  way 
back  to  Wakayama — for  Hiro  Mura  is  more  than  twenty 
miles,  from  the  nearest  railway  station — three  men  to  each 
jinrikisha,  running  with  scarcely  a  pause  and  at  a  rate  that 
would  have  gained  credit  for  any  horse  as  a  fairly  good 
roadster,  brought  us  to  the  well-situated  tea-house  at  Waka- 
no-ura.  For  centuries  the  most  celebrated  of  Japanese  poets 
have  sung  the  praises  of  the  scenery  of  this  region — the  boats 
with  the  women  gathering  seaweed  at  low  tide,  the  fishermen 
in  the  offing,  the  storks  standing  on  one  leg  in  the  water  or 
flying  above  the  rushes  of  the  salt  marsh.  Here  we  were  met 
for  tiffin  by  the  Governor  of  the  Prefecture  and  the  mayor  of 
the  city,  and  immediately  after  escorted  to  the  city  hall  of 
Wakayama,  where  an  audience  of  some  eight  hundred, 
officials  and  teachers,  had  already  assembled.  While  in  the 
waiting-room  of  this  hall,  a  telegram  from  Mr.  Yokoi  was 
handed  to  me,  announcing  that  Marquis  Ito  had  already 
left  Oiso  and  would  reach  Kyoto  that  very  evening  and 
arrange  to  see  me  the  next  day. 

It  was  now  necessary  to  change  the  plan  of  sight-seeing  in 
the  interesting  castle-town  of  Wakayama  for  an  immediate 
return  to  Kyoto.  Thus  we  were  taken  directly  from  the 
Hall  to  the  railway  station  and,  on  reaching  Osaka,  hurried 
across  the  city  in  time  to  catch  an  evening  train;  an  hour 


8  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

later  we  found  our  boys  waiting,  with  their  jinrikishas,  at 
the  station  in  Kyoto.  From  the  hotel  in  Kyoto  I  sent  word 
at  once  to  Marquis  Ito  of  our  arrival  and  placed  myself  at  his 
command  for  the  long-deferred  interview.  The  messenger 
brought  back  an  invitation  for  luncheon  at  one  o'clock  of  the 
next  day. 

When  we  reached  the  "  Kyoto  Hotel,"  at  the  time  appointed 
we  were  ushered  into  the  room  where  Marquis  Ito,  his  aide- 
de-camp,  General  Murata,  his  attending  physician,  his 
secretary,  and  four  guests  besides  ourselves,  were  already 
gathered.  After  leaving  the  luncheon  table,  we  had  scarcely 
entered  the  parlor  when  the  Marquis'  secretary  said :  "The 
Marquis  would  like  to  see  you  in  his  room."  I  followed  to 
the  private  parlor,  from  which  the  two  servants,  who  were 
laughing  and  chatting  before  the  open  fire,  were  dismissed  by 
a  wave  of  the  hand,  and  pointing  me  to  a  chair  and  seating 
himself,  the  Marquis  began  immediately  upon  the  matters  for 
conference  about  which  the  interview  had  been  arranged. 

His  Excellency  spoke  very  slowly  but  with  great  distinctness 
and  earnestness;  this  is,  indeed,  his  habitual  manner  of  speech 
whether  using  English  or  his  native  language.  The  manner 
of  speech  is  characteristic  of  the  mental  habit,  and  the 
established  principles  of  action.  In  the  very  first  place  he 
wished  it  to  be  made  clear  that  he  had  no  detailed  directions, 
or  even  suggestions,  to  offer.  I  was  to  feel  quite  independent 
as  to  my  plans  and  movements  in  co-operating  with  him  to 
raise  out  of  their  present,  and  indeed  historical,  low  condition 
the  unfortunate  Koreans.  In  all  matters  affecting  the  home 
policy  of  his  government  as  Resident-General,  he  was  now  a 
Korean  himself;  he  was  primarily  interested  in  the  welfare, 
educationally  and  economically,  of  these  thirteen  or  fourteen 
millions  of  wretched  people  who  had  been  so  long  and  so 
badly  misgoverned.  In  their  wish  to  remain  independent  he 
sympathized  with  them.  The  wish  was  natural  and  proper; 


THE  INVITATION  9 

indeed,  one  would  be  compelled  to  think  less  highly  of  them, 
if  they  did  not  have  and  show  this  wish.  As  to  foreign 
relations,  and  as  to  those  Koreans  who  were  plotting  with 
foreigners  against  the  Japanese,  his  attitude  was  of  necessity 
entirely  different.  He  was  against  these  selfish  intrigues;  he 
was  pledged  to  this  attitude  of  opposition  by  loyalty  to  his 
own  Emperor,  to  his  own  country,  and,  indeed,  to  the  best 
good  fortune  for  Korea  itself.  Japan  was  henceforth  bound 
to  protect  herself  and  the  Koreans  against  the  evil  influence 
and  domination  of  foreign  nations  who  cared  only  to  exploit 
the  country  in  their  own  selfish  interests  or  to  the  injury  of 
the  Japanese.  When  his  own  countrymen  took  part  in  such 
selfish  schemes,  he  was  against  them,  too. 

Again  and  again  did  the  Resident-General  affirm  that  the 
helping  of  Korea  was  on  his  conscience  and  on  his  heart; 
that  he  cared  nothing  for  criticism  or  opposition,  if  only  he 
could  bring  about  this  desirable  result  of  good  to  the  Koreans 
themselves.  He  then  went  on  to  say  that  diplomatic  negotia- 
tions between  Japan  and  both  Russia  and  France  were  so 
far  advanced  that  a  virtual  entente  cordiale  had  already  been 
reached.  Treaties,  formally  concluded,  would  soon,  he 
hoped  and  believed,  secure  definite  terms  for  the  continuance 
of  peaceful  relations.  Japan  had  already  received  from 
Russia  proposals  for  such  a  permanent  arrangement;  the 
reply  of  Japan  was  so  near  a  rapprochement  to  the  proposals  of 
Russia  as  to  encourage  the  judgment  that  actual  agreement 
on  the  terms  of  a  treaty  could  not  be  far  away.  The  situation, 
indeed,  was  now  such  that  Russia  had  invited  Japan  to  make 
counter  proposals.  The  present  Foreign  Minister  of  Russia 
the  Marquis  regarded  as  one  of  his  most  trusted  friends; 
the  Russian  Minister  was  ready,  in  the  name  of  the  Czar,  to 
affirm  his  Government's  willingness  to  abandon  the  aggressive 
policy  toward  Korea  and  Manchuria,  in  case  Japan  would, 
on  her  part,  pledge  herself  to  be  content  with  her  present 


io  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS  ITO 

possessions.  The  status  quo  was,  then,  to  be  the  basis  of  the 
new  treaties.  Great  Britain,  as  Japan's  ally,  was  not  only 
ready  for  this,  but  was  approaching  Russia  with  a  view  to  a 
settlement  of  the  questions  in  controversy  between  the  two 
nations,  in  regard  to  Persia,  Afghanistan,  and  elsewhere, 
where  they  had  common  interests.  France  would,  as  a  nation 
on  good  terms  with  both  Great  Britain  and  Russia,  and  as 
herself  the  friend  of  peace,  gladly  agree.  He  was,  then, 
hopeful  that  in  the  near  future  a  permanent  basis  of  peace 
for  the  whole  Orient  might  be  secured  by  concurrence  of  the 
four  great  nations  most  immediately  interested. 

To  these  disclosures  of  his  plans  and  hopes,  so  frankly  and 
fully  made  as  to  excite  my  surprise,  Marquis  Ito  then  added 
the  wish  that  I  should  at  this  time,  or  subsequently  while  on 
the  ground,  ask  of  him  any  questions  whatever,  information 
on  which  might  guide  in  forming  a  correct  judgment  as 
to  the  situation  there,  or  assist  in  the  effort  toward  the 
improvement  educationally,  industrially,  or  morally,  of  the 
Koreans  themselves.  In  reply  I  expressed  my  satisfaction 
at  the  confidences  which  His  Excellency  had  given  me,  and 
my  hearty  sympathy  with  his  plans  for  the  peaceful  develop- 
ment of  Korea.  Nothing,  it  seemed  to  me,  could  be  more 
important  in  the  interests  of  humanity  than  to  have  the  strife 
of  foreign  nations  for  a  selfish  supremacy  in  the  Far  East 
come  to  a  speedy  end.  But  the  perfect  freedom  of  inquiry  and 
action  allowed  to  me  was  in  some  sort  an  embarrassment. 
It  would  have  been  easier  to  have  had  a  definite  work  assigned, 
and  a  definite  method  prescribed.  However,  I  should  do  the 
best  that  my  inexperience  in  such  matters  made  possible,  in 
order  to  justify  his  favorable  judgment. 

It  was  my  intention  at  first  to  prepare  for  the  work  in  Korea 
by  much  reading  of  books.  But  the  professional  and  social 
demands  made  upon  both  time  and  strength,  to  the  very 
last  hour  of  our  stay  in  Japan,  prevented  the  carrying  out  of 


THE  INVITATION  n 

this  intention.  When,  later  on,  it  became  possible  to  read 
what  had  previously  been  published,  I  discovered  that  the 
deprivation  was  no  hindrance,  but  perhaps  a  positive  ad- 
vantage, to  the  end  of  success  in  my  task.  |  A  story  of  recent 
experiences  of  Korean  intrigue  which  had  already  been 
reported  to  me  in  detail  was  of  more  practical  value  than  the 
reading  of  many  learned  treatises.  The  story  was  as  follows : 
Among  the  several  representatives  of  American  Christian  and 
benevolent  enterprises  who  have  recently  visited  that  country, 
for  the  size  of  his  audiences  and  the  warmth  of  his  greeting, 
one  had  been  particularly  distinguished.  At  his  first  public 
address,  some  four  thousand  persons,  men  and  boys  (for 
the  Korean  women  are  never  seen  at  such  gatherings)  had 
attempted  to  crowd  into  "Independence  Hall."  Of  these, 
however,  nine-tenths  came  with  the  vague  feeling  that  it  is 
somehow  for  the  political  interest  of  Koreans  to  seem  friendly 
to  citizens  of  foreign  Christian  countries — especially  of  the 
United  States — in  order  to  secure  help  for  themselves  in  an 
appeal  to  interfere  with  the  Japanese  administration.  In  this 
case  the  speaker  was  at  first  supposed  to  have  great  political 
influence.  But  the  audience,  seeing  that  the  subjects  of 
address  were  religious  rather  than  political,  fell  off  greatly 
on  the  second  occasion.  Meanwhile,  some  of  the  Korean 
officials,  in  order  to  win  credit  for  themselves  for  procuring 
the  audience,  had  falsely  reported  that  the  Korean  Emperor 
wished  to  see  this  distinguished  representative  from  America. 
But  when  they  learned  that  application  for  the  audience  had 
been  duly  made,  through  the  proper  Japanese  official,  they 
came  around  again  and,  with  many  salaams  and  circuitous 
approaches,  expressed  the  regrets  of  His  Majesty  that,  being  in- 
disposed, he  was  unable  to  grant  the  audience  which  had  been 
applied  for.  At  the  very  time  of  this  second  falsehood,  the 
proper  official  was  in  the  act  of  making  out  the  permit  to  enter 
the  palace.  The  audience  came  off.  And  while  the  Amer- 


12  IN  KOREA   WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

lean  guest  was  in  the  waiting-room,  the  Minister  of  the 
Household,  watching  his  chance  to  escape  observation,  with 
his  hand  upon  his  heart,  appealed  to  the  distinguished 
American  for  his  nation's  sympathy  against  the  oppression 
of  the  Japanese.  During  the  two  months  of  my  own  ex- 
perience with  the  ways  of  the  Koreans,  all  this,  and  much 
more  of  the  same  sort,  was  abundantly  and  frequently  illus- 
trated. And,  indeed,  no  small  portion  of  the  recent  move- 
ment toward  Christianity  is  more  a  political  than  a  religious 
affair.  But  of  this  I  shall  speak  in  detail  later  on. 

It  was  the  understanding  with  Marquis  Ito  at  the  interview 
in  Kyoto  that  he  should  have  me  informed  at  Nagasaki,  at 
some  time  between  March  2oth  and  24th,  when  he  desired 
us  to  come  to  Seoul;  and  that  arrangements  should  then  be 
made  for  meeting  our  Japanese  escort  at  Shimonoseki. 
On  returning  to  the  hotel  parlor  the  Marquis  apologized  to 
Mrs.  Ladd  for  keeping  her  husband  away  so  long,  and  re- 
marked, playfully,  that  the  diplomatic  part  of  the  conference 
was  not  to  be  communicated  even  to  her,  until  its  expectations 
had  become  matters  of  history. 

Three  days  later  we  started  for  Nagasaki,  where  I  was  to 
spend  somewhat  more  than  a  week  lecturing  to  the  teachers 
of  the  Prefecture,  and  to  the  pupils  of  the  Higher  Commercial 
School.  As  we  crossed  the  straits  to  Moji,  the  sun  rose 
gloriously  over  the  mountains  and  set  the  sea,  the  shore,  and 
the  ships  in  the  two  harbors  aglow  with  its  vitalizing  fire. 
The  police  officer  assigned  to  guard  his  country's  guests, 
pointed  out  to  us  the  battleship  waiting  to  take  the  Resident- 
General  to  his  difficult  and  unappreciated  work  in  Korea; 
and  nearer  the  other  side  of  the  channel  we  noted  with  pleas- 
ure the  A  ki  Maru,  on  which  six  months  before  we  had  crossed 
the  Northern  Pacific. 

It  had  been  in  my  plans,  even  before  reaching  Japan,  to 
spend  a  month  or  two  in  Kiushu,  a  part  of  the  Empire  which 


THE  INVITATION  13 

is  in  some  respects  most  interesting,  and  which  I  had  never 
visited  before.  And,  indeed,  in  reliance  on  a  telegram  from 
Tokyo  which  read:  "Fix  your  own  date,  telegraph  Zumoto" 
(the  gentleman  who  was  to  accompany  us  from  Shimonoseki), 
"Seoul,"  arrangements  had  -already  been  completed  for 
lectures  at  Fukuoka,  and  had  been  begun  for  a  short  course 
also  at  Kumamoto.  But  the  very  next  day  after  these  in- 
structions had  been  followed,  a  telegram  came  from  Mr. 
Zumoto  himself,  who  was  already  waiting  at  Shimonoseki 
to  accompany  us  to  Seoul,  inquiring  when  we  could  start, 
and  adding  that  "the  Marquis  hoped  it  would  be  at  once." 
All  engagements  besides  the  one  at  Nagasaki  were  therefore 
promptly  cancelled.  On  the  evening  of  March  24th,  Mr. 
Akai,  who  had  been  our  kindly  escort  in  behalf  of  the  friends 
at  Nagasaki,  put  us  into  the  hands  of  our  escort  to  Korea, 
at  the  station  in  Moji. 

Since  the  steamer  for  Fusan  did  not  start  until  the  following 
evening,  we  had  the  daylight  hours  to  renew  our  acquaintance 
with  Shimonoseki.  The  historical  connections  which  this 
region  has  had  with  our  distinguished  host  made  the  time  here 
all  the  more  vividly  interesting.  At  this  place,  as  an  obscure 
young  man,  Ito  had  risked  his  life  in  the  interests  of  progress 
by  way  of  peace;  and  here,  too,  as  the  Commissioner  of  his 
Emperor,  the  now  celebrated  Marquis  had  concluded  the 
treaty  with  China  through  her  Commissioner,  Li  Hung 
Chang.  But  what  need  be  said  about  the  story  of  these 
enterprises  belongs  more  properly  with  the  biography  pf  the 
man.  At  about  8.30  o'clock  in  the  evening  of  March  25th  the 
harbor  launch,  with  the  chief  of  the  harbor  police  in  charge, 
conveyed  the  party  to  the  ship  Iki  Mam.  The  evening  was 
lovely;  bright  moonlight,  mild  breeze,  and  moderate  tempera- 
ture. After  tea,  at  about  eleven,  we  "turned  in"  to  pass  a 
comfortable  night  in  a  well-warmed  and  well-ventilated 
cabin. 


i4  IN  KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

I  have  dwelt  with  what  might  otherwise  seem  unnecessary 
detail  upon  my  invitation  to  Korea,  because  it  throws  needed 
light  upon  the  nature  and  opportunity  of  this  visit,  as  well  as 
upon  the  character  of  the  man  who  gave  the  invitation,  and  of 
the  administration  of  which  he  is  the  guiding  mind  and  the  in- 
spiring spirit.  I  was  to  be  entirely  independent,  absolutely 
free  from  all  orders  or  even  suggestions,  to  form  an  opinion 
as  to  the  sincerity  and  wisdom  of  the  present  Japanese  ad- 
ministration, as  to  the  character  and  needs  of  the  Korean 
public,  and  as  to  the  Korean  Court.  The  fullest  confidential 
information  on  all  points  was  to  be  freely  put  at  my  disposal; 
but  the  purpose  of  the  visit  was  to  be  in  full  accord  with  that 
of  the  Residency-General — namely,  to  help  the  Koreans,  and 
to  convince  all  reasonable  foreigners  of  the  intention  to  deal 
justly  with  them.  Suggestions  as  to  any  possible  improve- 
ments were  earnestly  requested.  For  I  hesitate  to  say  that 
His  Excellency,  with  a  sincerity  which  could  not  be  doubted, 
asked  that  I  should  advise  him  whenever  I  thought  best.  So 
far  as  this  understanding  properly  extends,  the  unmerited 
title  of  "Unofficial  Adviser  to  the  Resident-General,"  be- 
stowed by  some  of  the  foreign  and  native  papers,  was  not 
wholly  misplaced.  But  the  term  is  more  creditable  to  the 
sincerity  of  Marquis  Ito  than  to  my  own  fitness  for  any  such 
title.  "Adviser,"  in  any  strictly  official  or  political  meaning 
of  the  term,  is  a  word  altogether  inappropriate  to  describe 
our  relations  at  any  time. 


CHAPTER  II 

FIRST   GLIMPSES   OF   KOREA 

IT  was  soon  after  seven  on  the  morning  of  Tuesday,  March 
26,  1907,  that  we  had  our  first  sight  of  Chosen,  "The  Land  of 
Morning  Calm."  The  day  was  superb,  fully  bearing  out  the 
high  praise  which  is  almost  universally  bestowed  upon  the 
Korean  weather  in  Spring — the  sunshine  bright  and  genial, 
the  air  clear  and  stimulating  like  wine.  Tsushima,  the  island 
which  for  centuries  has  acted  as  a  sort  of  bridge  between  the 
two  countries,  was  fading  in  the  distance  on  our  port  stern. 
The  wardens  of  Tsushima,  under  the  Tokugawa  Shogunate 
and,  as  well,  much  earlier,  had  a  sort  of  monopoly  of  the 
trade  with  southern  Korea.  From  Tsushima,  several  centuries 
ago,  came  the  trees  which  make  conspicuous  the  one  thickly 
wooded  hill  in  Fusan,  now  the  only  public  park  in  the  whole 
country.  In  front  rose  the  coast;  its  mountains  denuded  of 
trees  and  rather  unsightly  when  seen  nearer  at  hand,  but  at 
a  distance,  under  such  a  sky,  strikingly  beautiful  for  their 
varied  richness  of  strong  coloring.  The  town  of  Fusan,  as 
we  approached  it,  had  a  comfortable  look,  with  its  Japanese 
buildings,  many  of  them  obviously  new,  nestled  about  the 
pine-covered  hill  which  has  already  been  noticed  as  its  public 
park. 

From  the  steamer's  deck  our  companion  pointed  out  the 
eminence'on  which,  according  to  the  narrative  written  by  a 
contemporary  in  Chinese  (the  book  has  never  been  trans- 
lated and  copies  of  the  original  are  rare),  the  Korean  Governor 

is 


16  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

of  the  District,  when  hunting  in  the  early  morning  more  than 
three  centuries  ago,  looked  out  to  sea  and  to  his  amazement 
saw  myriads  of  foreign-looking  boats  filled  with  armed  men 
approaching  the  bay.  It.  was  the  army  sent  by  Hideyoshi  for 
the  invasion  of  the  peninsula.  The  Korean  magistrate  hastened 
to  his-  official  residence  in  the  town,  but  scarcely  had  he 
arrived  when  the  Japanese  fortes  were  upon  him  and  had 
taken  possession  of  everything.  In  twenty-one  days  the  in- 
vaders were  in.  Seoul.  But  according  to  the  universal  custom 
of  the  country  when  invaded,  from  whatever  quarter  and  by 
whomsoever,  the  cowardly  court — a  motley  horde  of  king, 
concubines,  eunuchs,  sorcerers,  and  idle  officials — had  fled; 
then  a  Korean  mob  burned  and  sacked  the  deserted  palace 
and  did  what  well  could  be  done  toward  desolating  the  city. 
For  seven  years  the  Japanese  held  Southern  Korea,  even 
after  their  navy  had  been  destroyed,  so  as  to  make  it  impossi- 
ble to  transport  reinforcements  sufficient  to  meet  the  com- 
bined forces  of  the  Chinese  and  the  Koreans.  It  was  the 
fear  of  a  similar  experience  which,  centuries  later,  made  them 
so  careful  first  to  incapacitate  the  Russian  navy  as  a  matter 
of  supreme  importance.  On  another  low  hill  to  the  right, 
our  attention  was  directed  to  the  remnants  of  one  of  the  forts 
built  at  the  time  by  the  invading  Japanese ;  and  further  in- 
land, the  train  ran  near  to  traces  of  the  wall  which  they 
erected  for  the  defence  of  their  last  hold  upon  the  conquered 
country.  Even  then  "the  people  hated  them  with  a  hatred 
which  is  the  legacy  of  centuries;  but  could  not  allege  any- 
thing against  them,  admitting  that  they  paid  for  all  they  got, 
molested  no  one,  and  were  seldom  seen  outside  the  yamen 
gates." 

On  the  wharf  at  Fusan  there  were  waiting  to  welcome  us 
the  local  Resident,  the  manager  of  the  Fusan-Seoul  Railway, 
and  other  Japanese  officials — all  fine-looking  men  with  an  alert 
air  and  gentlemanly  bearing.  The  official  launch  conveyed 


FIRST   GLIMPSES   OF  KOREA  17 

us  to  the  landing  near  the  railway  station,  which  is  now 
some  distance  up  the  bay,  but  which  will  soon  be  brought 
down  to  the  new  wharf  that  is  in  process  of  building,  in  such 
good  time  that  we  had  an  hour  and  a  half  to  spend  before 
leaving  for  Seoul.  Most  of  this  time  was.  improved  in  visiting 
a  Korean  school  on  the  hillside  just  above.  We  were  not, 
however,  to  see  this  educational  institution  at  work,  but  only 
the  empty  school-rooms  and  several  of  the  Korean  and 
Japanese  -teachers.  For  the  one  hundred  and  seventy  chil- 
dren of  this  school,  clothed  in  holiday  garments  of  various 
shades  in  green,  pink,  carmine,  purple,  yellow,  and  a  few  in 
white  or  black,  were  just  starting  for  the  station  to  give  a 
"send-off"  to  Prince  Eui  Wha.  This  Prince  is  the  second 
living  son  of  the  Korean  Emperor  and,  in  the  event  of  the 
death  or  declared  incapacity  of  the  Crown  Prince,  the  legiti- 
mate heir  to  the  throne.  There  was  much  blowing  of  small 
trumpets  and  many  unsuccessful  attempts  on  the  part  of  the 
teachers  to  get  and  keep  the  line  in  order,  as  the  brilliantly 
colored  procession  moved  down  the  hill. 

The  teachers  who  remained  behind  showed  me  courteously 
over  the  school-rooms  and  interpreted  the  " curriculum"  of 
the  school  which  had  been  posted  for  my  benefit  in  one  of  the 
rooms.  I  give  it  below  as  a  good  example  of  the  kind  of  in- 
struction which  is  afforded  in  the  best  of  the  primary  grades 
of  the  Korean  school  system  as  fostered  by  the  Japanese: 

ist  Class — Ages,  7-9  years,  inclusive: 

Chinese  classics;   morals;   penmanship;   gymnastics. 
2d  Class — Ages,  10-11  years,  inclusive: 

Chinese   classics;   -national  literature;    penmanship; 

Korean  history;  gymnastics. 
3^  Class — Ages,  12-13  years,  inclusive: 

Chinese  classics;    arithmetic;    composition;    national 
and  universal  history;    gymnastics, 


i8  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

4th  Class — Ages,  14-15  years,  inclusive: 

Chinese  classics;   arithmetic;   composition;   Japanese 

language;   universal  history;   gymnastics. 
<fh  Class — Ages,  16  years  and  over: 

English;    Japanese;   geography;    national    and    uni- 
versal history;  Korean  law;  international  law. 

It  will  appear  that  this  scheme  of  education  is  based  upon 
a  Chinese  model,  largely  modified  -to  meet  modern  require- 
ments and,  in  the  upper  classes,  designed  to  fit  those  who 
are  able  to  continue  in  school  for  the  lower  grades  of  the 
Korean  official  appointments/ 

On  returning  to  the  station  we  found  the  children  in  line 
on  one  side  of  the  road  and  on  the  other  a  row  of  Korean  men, 
some  in  clean  and  some  in  dirty-white  clothing,  waiting  for  the 
coming  of  the  Prince.  The  difference  between  the  mildly 
disorderly  and  unenthusiastic  behavior  of  the  Korean  crowd 
and  the  precise  and  alert  enthusiasm  of  the  Japanese  on 
similar  occasions  was  significant.  The  Japanese  policemen 
treated  all  the  people,  especially  the  children,  with  con- 
spicuous gentleness.  The  Prince,  who  arrived  at  last  in  a 
jinrikisha  and  took  the  reserved  carriage  just  back  of  the 
one  reserved  for  us,  had  a  languid  and  somewhat  blase  air; 
but  he  bowed  politely  and  removed  his  hat  for  an  instant  as 
he  passed  by. 

Before  the  train  left  the  station  a  number  of  the  principal 
civil  officers  of  Japanese  Fusan  appeared  to  bid  us  a  good 
journey;  and  so  we  entered  Korea  as  we  had  left  Japan, 
reminded  that  we  were  among  friends  and  should  feel  at 
home.  Indeed,  at  every  important  station  the  cards  of  the 
leading  officials,  who  had  been  informed  of  the  arrival  of  his 
guests  from  the  office  of  the  Resident-General  at  Seoul,  were 
handed  in;  and  this  was  followed  by  hand-shaking  and  the 
interchange  of  salutations. 


FIRST   GLIMPSES   OF  KOREA  19 

The  country  through  which  the  train  passed  during  the 
entire  day  was  very  monotonous — or  perhaps  "repetitious" 
is  the  better  descriptive  word.  Each  mile,  while  in  itself  in- 
teresting and  possessed  of  a  certain  beauty  due  to  the  rich 
coloring  of  the  denuded  rock  of  the  mountains  and  of  the 
sand  of  the  valleys,  which  are  deprived  of  their  natural  green 
covering  by  the  neglect  to  bar  out  the  summer  floods,  was 
very  like  every  other  of  the  nearly  three  hundred  miles  be- 
tween Fusan  and  Seoul.  Here,  as  everywhere  in  Korea, 
there  was  an  almost  complete  absence  of  any  special  interests, 
either  natural  or  human,  such  as  crowd  the  hills  and  valleys 
of  Japan.  Of  roads  there  appeared  to  be  nothing  worthy 
of  the  name — only  rough  and  tortuous  paths,  in  parts 
difficult  for  the  Korean  pony  or  even  for  the  pedestrian  to 
traverse.  No  considerable  evidences  of  any  other  industry 
than  the  unenlightened  and  unimproved  native  forms  of 
agriculture  were  visible  on  purely  Korean  territory.  But  at 
Taiden — about  170  miles  from  Fusan  and  106  from  Seoul — 
where  the  car  of  the  Prince-  was  switched  off,  and  where  he 
remained  overnight  in  order  that  he  might  arrive  at  the 
Capital  in  the  daylight,  something  better  appeared.  This 
city  is  situated  on  a  mountainous  plateau  and  is  surrounded 
by  extensive  rice-fields,  some  of  which,  we  were  told,  belong 
to  the  son  of  Marquis  Nabeshima,  to  Count  Kabayama,  and 
to  other  Japanese.  In  spots,  the  number  of  which  is  in- 
creasing, all  over  Southern  Korea,  Japanese  small  farmers 
are  giving  object-lessons  in  improved  agriculture;  and 
grouped  around  all  the  stations  of  the  railway,  the  neat 
houses  and  tidy  gardens  of  the  same  immigrants  are  teaching 
the  natives  to  aspire  after  better  homes.  Our  escort  believes 
that  the  process  of  amalgamation,  which  has  already  begun, 
will  in  time  settle  all  race  differences,  at  least  in  this  part  of 
the  country. 

At  ten  o'clock  our  train  arrived  at  the  South-Gate  station 


20  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

of  Seoul,  where  we  were  met  by  General  Murata,  Marquis 
Ito's  aide-de-camp,  Mr.  Miura,  the  Seoul  Resident,  Mr. 
Ichihara,  manager  of  the  Japanese  banks  established  in 
Korea,  a  friend  of  years'  standing,  and  others,  both  gentle- 
men and  ladies.  The  dimly  lighted  streets  through  which 
the  jinrikishas  passed  afforded  no  glimpses,  even,  into  the 
character  of  the  city  where  were  to  be  spent  somewhat  more 
than  two  exceedingly  interesting  and  rather  exciting  months. 
But  less  than  an  hour  later  we  were  lodged  in  comfortable 
quarters  at  Miss  Sontag's  house,  and  were  having  a  first  ex- 
perience of  the  almost  alarming  stillness  of  a  Korean  night. 
Even  in  the  midst  of  a  multitude  of  more  than  two  hundred 
thousand  souls,  the  occasional  bark  of  a  dog  and  the  un- 
ceasing rat-tat  of  the  ironing-sticks  of  some  diligent  house- 
wife, getting  her  lord's  clothing  of  a  dazzling  whiteness  for 
next  day's  parade,  are  the  only  sounds  that  are  sure  to  strike 
the  ear  and  soothe  to  sleep  brains  which  must  be  prevented 
from  working  on  things  inward,  if  they  sleep  soundly  at  all. 
But  this  is  the  place  to  speak  in  well-merited  praise  of  the 
unwearied  kindness  and  generosity  of  our  hostess.  Miss 
Sontag  not  only  makes  the  physical  comforts  of  those  visiting 
Seoul,  who  are  fortunate  enough  to  be  her  guests,  far  different 
from  what  they  could  be  without  her  friendly  help,  but  is  also 
able  to  afford  much  insight  into  Korean  customs,  of  which 
her  experience  has  been  most  intimate  and  intelligently 
derived. 

With  the  morning  light  of  March  2yth  began  first  obser- 
vations of  the  physical  conditions  and  more  obvious  social 
peculiarities  of  Seoul — the  place  which  has  been  fitly  styled 
"an  encyclopaedia  of  most  of  the  features  of  Korean  so-called 
city  life."  It  is  impossible  to  describe  Seoul,  however,  in  any 
such  fashion  as  to  satisfy  the  conflicting  opinions  of  all— 
whether  transient  foreign  observer  or  old-time  resident. 
The  former  will  base  his  estimate  upon  the  particular  aspects 


FIRST   GLIMPSES   OF  KOREA  21 

or  incidents  concerning  which  his  missionary  or  diplomatic 
friend  has  given  him  presumably,  but  by  no  means  always 
actually,  trustworthy  information;  or  upon  what  his  own 
uninstructecl  eye  and  untrained  ear  may  happen  to  see  and 
hear;  while  the  more  permanent  indweller  in  Seoul  is 
pretty  sure  to  conceive  of  it,  and  of  its  inhabitants,  according 
to  the  success  or  the  failure  of  his  schemes  for  promoting  his 
own  commercial,  political,  or  religious  interests.  This  differ- 
ence is  apt  to  become  emphatic,  whenever  any  of  the  patent 
relations  of  the  two  peoples  chiefly  interested,  the  Koreans 
and  the  Japanese,  are  directly  or  even  more  remotely  con- 
cerned. The  point  of  view  taken  for  comparison  also  de- 
termines much.  Approached  from  Peking  or  from  any  one 
of  scores  of  places  in  China,  Seoul  seems  no  filthier  than  the 
visitor's  accustomed  surroundings  have  been.  But  he  who 
comes  from  Old  or  New  England,  or  from  Japan,  will  observe 
many  things,  greatly  to  his  disgust.  The  missionary  who 
compares  his  own  method  in  conducting  a  prayer-meeting 
with  that  pursued  by  the  guard  in  clearing  the  way  at  the 
railway  station,  or  with  that  to  which  the  policeman  or  the 
jinrikisha-runner  on  the  street  is  compelled  by  the  crowd 
of  idle  and  stately  stepping  pedestrians,  will  doubtless  com- 
plain of  the  rudeness  shown  to  the  Koreans  by  the  invading 
Japanese.  And  if  he  is  disposed  to  overlook  the  conduct  of 
the  roughs  in  San  Francisco,  or  to  minimize  the  accounts  of 
the  behavior  of  American  soldiers  in  the  Philippines,  or  has 
forgotten  his  own  experiences  at  the  Brooklyn  Bridge,  he  may 
send  home  letters  deprecating  the  inferior  civilization  of  the 
Far  East.  On  the  other  hand,  he  who  knows  the  practice  of 
Korean  robbers,  official  and  unofficial,  toward  their  own 
countrymen,  or  who  recalls  the  sight  of  a  Korean  mob  tearing 
their  victim  limb  from  limb,  or  who  credits  the  reports  of  the 
unutterable  cruelties  that  have  for  centuries  gone  on  behind 
the  palace  walls,  will,  of  course,  take  a  widely  divergent  point 


22  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

of  view.  But  let  us — laying  aside  prejudice — glance  at  the 
externals  of  the  capital  city  of  Korea,  as  they  appeared  during 
the  months  of  April  and  May,  1907. 

The  word  Seoul,1  coined  by  the  Shilla  Kingdom  in  South- 
eastern Korea  and  originally  pronounced  So-ra-pul,  means 
"national  capital";  and  Hanyang  ("Sun  of  the  Han"),  the 
real  name  of  the  present  capital,  is  only  one  of  a  succession 
of  "Seouls,"  of  which  Song-do  and  Pyeng-yang  were  the  most 
notable.  To  the  imagination  of  the  ignorant  populace  of 
Korea,  who  can  have  no  conception  of  what  real  civic  beauty 
and  decency  are  in  these  modern  days,  and  who  are  accus- 
tomed to  express  themselves  with  Oriental  hyberbole,  Han- 
yang is  the  "Observation  of  all  Nations,"  "the  King's  city  in 
the  clouds,"  "a  city  that  spirits  regard  and  ghosts  conceal"; 
and  to  be  hailed  as  the  "Coiled  Dragon  and  the  Crouching 
Tiger."  When  the  town  came  down  from  the  mountain 
retreat  of  Puk  Han  (to  be  described  later)  and  spread  over  the 
plain  in  order  to  utilize  the  Han  River,  it  took  the  river's 
name;  but  it  was  only  some  five  hundred  and  twenty  years 
ago  made  "Seoul"  by  the  founder  of  the  present  dynasty 
selecting  it  as  his  capital  city. 

The  situation  of  the  chief  city  of  modern  Korea  becomes 
more  and  more  impressive  and,  in  every  important  respect, 
satisfactory,  the  greater  the  frequency  of  one's  reflective 
observation  from  any  one  of  numerous  favorable  points  of 
view.  There  is  no  natural  reason  why,  under  the  govern- 
mental reforms  and  material  improvements  which  are  now 
being  put  into  effect,  Seoul  should  not  become  as  healthy, 
prosperous,  and  beautiful  a  place  of  residence  as  can  be  shown 
anywhere  in  the  Far  East.  WThile  its  lower  level  is  only  some 
120  feet  above  tide-water,  and  within  easy  reach  of  the  sea  by 

1  For  the  following  description  of  Seoul,  besides  my  own  observations, 
I  am  chiefly  indebted  to  a  series  of  articles  published  during  our  stay 
there  by  Dr.  G.  Heber  Jones  in  the  Seoul  Press. 


a, 

rt 
U 


FIRST   GLIMPSES   OF   KOREA  23 

the  river,  the  city  is,  with  the  exception  of  the  side  which 
opens  toward  and  stretches  down  to  this  waterway,  com- 
pletely surrounded  by  mountains.  On  the  north  these 
guardian  peaks  rise  to  the  height  of  2,500  feet,  from  the  tops 
of  which  magnificent  views  can  be  obtained,  not  only  of  the 
town  nestled  at  their  feet  but  of  the  surrounding  land  and  of 
the  ocean,  far  away.  It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  climb 
so  high  in  order  to  discover  the  geographical  peculiarities  of 
Seoul.  "  To  secure  the  best  view  of  the  city  and  its  surround- 
ings," says  Dr.  Jones,  "one  should  ascend  the  lower  slopes 
of  Nam-san"  (a  mountain  almost  wholly  within  the  walls) 
"on  a  bright  sunny  day  in  Spring.  Taking  a  position  on  one 
of  the  many  spurs  jutting  out  from  this  mountain  a  really 
notable  scene  greets  the  eye.  The  stone  screen  of  mountains 
enclosing  the  city  begins  at  the  left,  with  Signal  Peak  dis- 
tinguished by  a  lone  pine-tree  on  its  top.  In  former  years 
there  was  a  beacon  fire-station  here,  which  formed  one  of  the 
termini  of  the  long  line  of  fire-stations  that  in  pre-telegraph 
days  signalled  to  the  authorities  the  weal  or  woe  of  the 
people." 

Attention  should  again  be  called — at  least  for  all  lovers  of 
natural  beauty — to  the  intensity  and  changeable  character  of 
the  colors  of  the  surrounding  mountains  and  hills,  and  of  the 
city  enclosed  by  them  in  its  plain,  or  in  places  where  a  few 
houses,  mostly  foreign,  climb  their  sides.  These  colors  are 
often  very  intense;  but  they  change  in  a  remarkable  way,  ac- 
cording to  the  brilliancy  and  direction  of  the  sunlight,  and 
the  varying  mixtures  of  sunshine  and  shadow.  \PYom  such 
a  point  of  view,  the  city  itself,  which  is  for  the  most  part  mean 
and  filthy  when  seen  from  the  streets,  appears  as  a  sort  of 
grayish  carpet,  with  dark-green  spots  made  by  the  pines, 
for  the  plain  beneath  one's  feetA  As  has  already  been  in- 
dicated, the  hillsides,  both  within  and  around  the  walls,  are 
uninhabited.  They  are  devoted — and  thus  wasted — to  the 


24  IN  KOREA   WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

mounds  that  cover  the  long-forgotten  dead.  By  calculation, 
upon  a  basis  of  counting,  it  is  estimated  that  one  of  these  burial 
grounds  in  the  vicinity  of  Seoul  has  no  fewer  than  750,000  of 
these  graves.  It  is  neither  reverence  nor  any  other  worthy 
feeling,  however,  which  is  the  chief  factor  in  fostering  a 
custom  so  expensive  of  comfort  to  the  living;  it  is  supersti- 
tious fear,  akin  to  that  spirit-worship,  which  is  largely  devil- 
worship,  and  which  is  really  the  only  effective  religion  of  the 
non-Christian  Korean  people.  Foreign  residents  upon  the 
hillsides  find  it  difficult  to  keep  their  Korean  servants  during 
the  night,  so  dominated  are  they  by  their  fear.  In  this 
respect,  as  well  as  others,  there  is  an  important  difference 
between  so-called  ancestor-worship,  as  in  Korea,  and  ancestor- 
worship  in  Japan. 

The  most  obvious  thing  of  interest  in  Seoul  is  the  city  wall. 
Its  construction  was  begun  early  in  1396,  four  years  after  the 
present  dynasty  came  to  the  throne;  it  was  finished  in  about 
nine  months  by  the  forced  labor  of  men  aggregating  in  number 
198,000.  According  to  the  legendary  account,  the  course  of 
the  wall  was  marked  out  by  a  Buddhist  monk,  who  had  the 
help  of  a  miraculous  fall  of  snow  that  indicated  the  line  which 
should  be  take'n  in  order  to  avoid  a  dangerous  mixture  of  the 
"tiger"  influence  and  the  " dragon"  influence.  To  this  day 
the  Koreans,  like  the  Chinese,  whose  pernicious  domination 
they  have  followed  in  this  as  in  many  other  respects,  are  firm 
believers  in  geomancy.  The  fact  is,  however,  that  the  wall 
surrounding  Seoul  wanders,  without  any  assignable  reason, 
some  twelve  miles,  as  recent  surveys  have  settled  the  long 
dispute  about  its  length,  over  hills  and  along  valleys,  enclosing 
a  vast  amount  of  uninhabitable  as  well  as  inhabited  space. 
It  is  built  of  partially  dressed  stone,  with  large  blocks  laid 
lengthwise  at  the  base,  and  the  superstructure  formed  of 
layers  of  smaller  stone — the  whole  surmounted  by  battlements 
about  five  feet  high  and  pierced  with  loop-holes  for  archery 


FIRST   GLIMPSES   OF  KOREA  25 

adapted  to  the  varying  distances  of  an  approaching  foe.  In 
height  it  ranges  from  twenty  to  forty  feet;  it  is  banked  by  an 
embankment  of  earth  from  twelve  to  fifteen  feet  thick. 
Various  attempts  have  been  made  at  patching  up  this  decay- 
ing structure,  but  it  can  never  have  had  the  solidity  and  im- 
pregnability against  attack  by  the  methods  of  mediaeval  war- 
fare which  were  given  to  fortifications  of  the  same  era  in 
Japan.  Moreover,  the  Korean  defenders  of  the  wall  cus- 
tomarily ran  away  as  the  foe  approached;  and  this  the 
Japanese  seldom  or  never  did.  Thus  Seoul  was  easily 
captured  by  the  warriors  of  Hideyoshi  in  1592,  and  nearly  a 
half  century  later  by  a  Manchu  invading  army.  The  wall  is, 
of  course,  useless  for  purposes  of  defence  against  modern  war- 
fare; and  its  continuance  in  existence,  at  least  in  large  part, 
depends  upon  the  length  of  time  during  which  the  sentiment 
of  pride  triumphs  over  more  utilitarian  considerations. 

It  is  the  Gates  of  Seoul  which  emphasize  the  visitors 
interest  in  the  city  wall  and  which  give  most  of  character  to 
its  picturesque  features.  In  themselves,  they  are  mere 
" tunnels  pierced  in  the  wall";  but  they  are  rendered  archi- 
tecturally interesting  by  the  wide-spreading  eaves  and  graceful 
curvature  and,  in  some  cases,  striking  ornamentation  of  their 
roofs.  They  are,  in  all,  eight  in  number,  one  of  which  is  the 
"concealed."  They  bear  the  names  of  the  points  of  the 
compass — South,  Little  West,  West,  Northwest,  East,  Little 
East,  and  East  Water;  this  is  not,  however,  because  they 
face  true  to  these  points,  but  because  in  the  main  they  form 
the  principal  avenues  of  communication  between  the  inside  of 
the  wall  and  the  outlying  regions  situated  in  these  general 
directions.  Each  of  the  gates  has,  besides,  another  name  char- 
acterized by  the  customary  Korean  hyberbole.  There  are,  for 
example,  the  "Gate  of  Exalted  Ceremony,"  the  "Gate  of  Efful- 
gent Righteousness"  (or,  in  two  other  cases,  different  kinds 
of  righteousness),  the  "Gate  of  Brilliant  Splendor,"  etc.  But 


26  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

in  and  out  of  these  gates,  for  one-half  of  a  thousand  years,  far 
more  of  corruption,  cruelty,  and  darkness,  has  crept,  or  trailed, 
or  strutted,  than  of  the  qualities  fitly  called  by  their  high- 
sounding  names.  It  was  over  them  that  the  late  "  lamented 
queen"  festooned  more  than  a  score  of  heads  freshly  taken 
from  her  political  enemies  in  order  to  signify  to  the  Tai-won- 
kun  that  she  retained  control  of  His  Majesty,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  his  father  had  obtained  permission  to  re-enter  the 
city  through  that  same  gateway.  But  why  disturb  our  ad- 
miration of  a  point  of  structural  interest  by  recalling  one  of 
the  long  list  of  doings  in  and  around  Seoul,  no  less  distinctive 
of  the  character  of  its  government?  In  those  older  days, 
when  the  Great  Bell  of  the  city  rang  the  curfew,  the  gates 
were  at  once  locked  for  the  night;  and  any  inquirer  may 
hear  from  missionaries  and  travellers  how  they  have  climbed 
the  wall  in  order  not  to  sleep  outside — thus  incurring  the 
death  penalty,  which  was  not,  however,  at  all  likely  to  be 
enforced  upon  the  protected  foreigner.  The  gates  them- 
selves, and  the  devices  for  locking  them,  are  very  similar  to 
those  so  frequently  met  with  as  the  relics  of  mediaeval  Europe. 
But  the  clay  manikins  (or  Son-o-gong)  which  sit  astride  the 
ridges  of  the  roof,  are  designed  to  warn  and  ward  off  all  evil 
spirits  that  may  attempt  to  enter  the  city.  The  old-fashioned 
guards,  with  their  dreadful  array  of  big  knives  and  swords, 
have  now  given  place  to  the  modern  policeman,  whose  princi- 
pal duty  is  to  keep  the  gateway  clear  for  traffic.  This  service 
is  needed,  for  it  is  said  that  no  fewer  than  20,000  foot-passen- 
gers, besides  a  stream  of  laden  ponies  and  bullocks,  and  a 
tolerably  frequent  schedule  of  electric  cars,  sometimes  pass 
through  the  South  Gate  in  a  single  day.  \And  the  Koreans  in 
the  streets  are  a  slow-moving,  stubborn,  and  stupid  crow3^ 
^To  the  ordinary  traveller,  after  the  first  strangeness  of  its 
more  obvious  aspects  is  over,  not  much^remains  of  particular 
interest  in  the  capital  city  of  Korea.  Of  fine  buildings,  of 


FIRST   GLIMPSES   OF  KOREA  27 

museums,  picture-galleries,  temples,  theatres,  parks,  and 
public  gardens,  there  is  little  or  nothing  to  compare  with  any 
European  or  Japanese  city  of  the  same  size!)  There  is,  how- 
ever, here  as  everywhere  in  the  peninsula,  noiittle  of  antiqua- 
rian and  historical  interest  which  awaits  the  researches  of  those 
trained  and  enthusiastic  in  such  pursuits.  Of  those  sights 
which  the  city  of  Seoul  within  the  walls  can  show,  there  are 
three  principal  classes — the  so-called  palaces,  the  shrines,  and 
the  monuments.  Even  these  are  interesting,  not  for  their 
intrinsic  grandeur  or  beauty,  but  chiefly  for  their  connection 
with  the  legends  or  historical  incidents  of  the  country. 

To  quote  again  from  the  articles  of  Dr.  Jones:  "The 
Koreans  apply  the  term  Rung  or  palace  to  all  residences  of 
royalty,  and  to  them  Seoul  is  a  city  of  palaces,  for  there  are 
eighteen  Kung  of  varying  sizes  and  degrees  of  importance  in 
and  about  the  city."  Among  the  eighteen,  however,  "there 
are  several  which  are  to-day  a  name  and  nothing  more." 
Of  these  minor  palaces  the  most  interesting  is  that  called  the 
"Special  South  Palace,"  which  was  erected  nearly  five  hun- 
dred years  ago  by  one  of  the  kings  for  his  favorite  daughter 
and  her  consort.  But  the  latter  made  it  such  a  "veritable 
den  of  infamy"  that  it  was  abandoned  as  a  house  haunted 
by  evil  spirits  and  unsafe  for  habitation.  The  mixture  of 
fawning  malice  and  hypocritical  servility  characteristic  of 
Korean  officialdom  was  at  one  time  humorously  exhibited 
in  a  way  to  deceive  even  the  Chinese;  for  when  the  Mings 
were  overthrown  by  the  Manchus,  the  hated  envoys  of  the 
latter  were  assigned  to  this  House,  "for  their  entertainment 
and  as  a  covert  derogation  to  their  dignity."  Thus,  too,  with 
the  so-called  "Mulberry  Palace,"  known  by  the  Koreans  as 
the  "Palace  of  Splendid  Happiness."  It  was  erected  by  the 
tyrant  Lord  Kwanghai  who  was  here  dethroned,  and  from 
here  sent  into  exile,  where  he  died  a  prisoner,  •  From  it  also 
his  successor  was  driven  out  by  the  usurping  "Three  Days, 


28  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

King."  It  was  in  this  palace,  also,  that  the  King  Suk-jong, 
having  surprised  his  favorite  concubine  in  practising  magic 
rites  to  accomplish  the  death  of  the  Queen  whom  she  had 
already  caused  to  be  divorced  and  banished,  turned  upon 
the  concubine  herself,  sentenced  her  to  drink  poison,  and 
when  she  in  revenge  mutilated  the  Crown  Prince,  had  her 
torn  in  pieces.  Its  present  name  is  derived  from  one  of  the 
many  fruitless  experiments  which  the  present  Government 
of  Korea,  left  to  itself,  is  constantly  making.  The  "mul- 
berry" plantation  remains  only  as  a  name  to  adorn,  or  de- 
grade, the  ruins  of  the  palace.  But  if  any  visitor  to  Seoul 
thinks  that  such  violence,  lust,  and  thriftlessness,  must  of 
necessity  belong  to  the  ancient  history  of  Korea,  let  him 
learn  his  mistake.  Were  the  firm,  strong  hand  of  the  Japan- 
ese Resident- General  withdrawn,  there  is  not  one  of  these 
horrid  deeds  which  might  not  be  reproduced  at  any  hour. 

These  are  not,  however,  the  "Major  Palaces,"  through 
which  the  foreign  visitor  is  usually  conducted,  after  having 
obtained  a  permit  from  the  proper  authorities.  The  palace, 
known  to  the  Koreans  as  the  Kyung-pok,  or  "Palace  of 
Beautiful  Blessing,"  and  to  foreigners  as  the  '"Summer 
Palace,"  dates  from  1394,  and  was  occupied  by  the  present 
Emperor  until  1896.  Nowhere  else  have  I  seen  so  large  a 
space  (it  is  estimated  that  the  principal  enclosure  containing 
only  the  buildings  deemed  necessary  for  his  Korean  Maj- 
esty's comfort,  contains  one  hundred  acres,  Besides  which 
there  are  other  enclosures  running  up  the  slopes  of  the 
mountains  and  designed  for  defence)  strewn  over  with 
desolated  and  half-ruined  barbaric  splendor.  The  main 
Gateway,  through  whose  central  arch  no  other  person  than 
His  Majesty  and  his  bearers  may  pass,  is  an  impressive 
structure  and  is  still  in  fairly  good  repair.  It  is  guarded  by 
stone  effigies  of  the  Hai-tai,  or  mythical  sea-monsters,  who 
are  prepared  to  spout  water  against  the  mysterious  influences 


FIRST   GLIMPSES   OF  KOREA  29 

stored  in  the  "fire  mountain,"  some  ten  miles  away  to  the 
southward.  They  are  therefore  called  "Fire  Dogs."  Once 
inside  the  enclosure,  one  is  presented  with  a  melancholy 
picture  of  neglect,  swiftly  oncoming  decay,  and  advancing 
ruin.  All  this  is  the  more  melancholy,  because  the  present 
palace  buildings  are  only  about  fifty  years  old,  were  erected 
by  the  Prince-parent  of  the  present  Emperor,  almost  to  the 
financial  ruin  of  the  country,  and  were  abandoned  only  after 
the  assassination  of  the  Queen,  October  8,  1895.  4 

Amidst  this  crowded  waste  where  formerly  three  thousand 
persons  lived  in  attendance  upon  the  separate  establishments 
for  the  King,  Queen,  Crown  Prince,  and  the  Dowagers,  there 
are  only  two  buildings  which,  architecturally  considered,  are 
worthy  of  note.  One  of  these  is  the  old  "Audience  Hall." 
Its  columns,  although  many  are  cracked  for  a  considerable 
part  of  their  length,  and  none  of  them  ever  possessed  any- 
thing like  the  beauty  or  finish  of  the  noble  wooden  pillars 
of  the  Nishi  Hongwanji  in  Kyoto  (which,  however,  they  re- 
semble in  style  and  effect),  seem  to  have  been  made  of  entire 
stately  trees.  There  are  really  no  galleries,  but  the  appear- 
ance is  that  of  a  two-galleried  hall.  The  strong  colors  of  red, 
black,  green,  and  blue,  with  which  the  carved  and  panelled 
ceiling  is  decorated,  in  a  manner  similar  to  that  of  the  castles 
in  the  Tokugawa  period  in  Japan,  seem  to  find  their  way 
through  one's  upturned  eyes  to  the  base  of  the  brain.  In 
some  of  its  structural  features  this  Audience  Hall  resembles 
the  audience  halls  of  the  Muhammadan  monarchs  in  North- 
ern India  more  than  anything  to  be  found  in  Japan.  This 
is  especially  true  of  the  high  platform  on  which  the  throne 
was  placed.  The  decoration  central  over  it,  and  that  central 
in  the  ceiling  of  the  whole  hall,  is  golden  dragons,  with  clouds 
and  flames,  in  bas-reliefs;  it  is  in  an  excellent  state  of 
preservation. 

The  other  really  fine  building  in  the  entire  collection  is  the 


3o  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

so-called  "Hall  of  Congratulations,"  whose  upper  floor  is 
supported  by  forty-eight  granite  monoliths — six  rows  of  eight 
each  in  a  row.  These  pillars  are  about  sixteen  feet  high  and 
three  feet  square.  The  lotus  pond  surrounding  the  building 
is  oblong  and  faced  with  masonry;  while  miniature  islands 
rise  here  and  there  above  the  surface  of  the-  water.  This 
Hall  was  intended  for  state  social  functions  of  the  out-of- 
door  character. 

By  going  still  further  back  of  the  sleeping  apartments  of  the 
King,  which  consisted  of  nine  rooms  arranged  in  a  square, 
so  that  the  eight  surrounding  the  central  room  could  guard  it 
from  intrusion  or  attack,  we  come  in  front  of  the  wall  behind 
whose  screen  are  the  apartments  in  one  of  which  the  brilliant 
and  attractive  but  cruel  Queen  met  her  own  most  tragic  and 
cruel  death.  All  are  now  forbidden  to  enter  there.  But 
some  twelve  years  before,  our  escort  had  seen  the  dark  blood- 
stains on  the  floor — perhaps  hers,  perhaps  those  of  her  cham- 
berlain who  met  his  death  in  trying  to  protect  his  queen. 
And  one  has  only  to  look  a  little  way  over  to  the  right  in  order 
to  see  the  now  peaceful  pine-grove  where  her  body  was 
dragged  and  burned.  Such  was  the  deed  which  terminated 
the  royal  habitation  of  another,  and  this  the  most  splendid,  of 
the  palaces  of  Seoul! 

It  is  the  grounds,  rather  than  the  buildings,  of  the  East 
Palace,  especially  when  the  azaleas  and  cherry  bushes  and 
apricot-trees  are  in  full  bloom,  which  constitute  its  beauty. 
Here  the  diplomatic  corps  and  the  other  invited  guests  of  the 
Emperor  are  accustomed  to  have  picnics  and  afternoon 
teas.  The  apartments,  which  were  united  into  one  so-called 
palace  in  the  reign  of  Suk-jong  (1694-1720)  appear  to  be 
most  distinctively  Korean  and  are  unlike  any  other  buildings 
which  I  have  ever  seen.  The  rooms  are  small  and  rambling; 
and  the  screens  between  them  are  decorated  with  those  geo- 
metrical patterns  which  are  so  ancient  and  so  nearly  universal 


FIRST   GLIMPSES   OF   KOREA  31 

wherever  architecture  has  reached  a  certain  stage  of  develop- 
ment. The  ceilings  are  low  and  devoid  of  decoration,  but 
are  made  pleasing  by  being  everywhere  "beamed-over." 
This  palace,  too,  has  not  escaped  its  history  of  violence  and 
its  bath  of  blood.  Here  it  was  that,  in  1884,  the  party  of 
Progressives,  headed  by  Mr.  Kim  Ok-kiun,  tried  to  enforce 
reforms  by  capturing  the  person  of  the  King.  But  the  con- 
servative party  of  Koreans,  helped  by  eight  hundred  Chinese 
soldiers  under  the  leadership  of  the  Major  Yuan,  who  after- 
ward became  Li  Hung  Chang's  successor,  and  is  even  to-day 
cutting  an  important  figure  in  the  complicated  politics  of 
China,  finally  drove  out  the  Progressives  and  the  one  hundred 
and  forty  Japanese  who  were  defending  them. 

Little  else  of  the  mildly  exciting  "sights"  of  Seoul  remains 
besides  the  Great  Bell  and  the  Marble  Pagoda.  The  former 
bears  witness  to  an  art  in  which  the  Koreans  once  excelled, 
but  which  is  now,  like  all  the  other  arts,  either  lost  or  neg- 
lected. At  Nikko,  it  will  be  remembered,  there  is  a  Korean 
bell  which  was  presented  to  one  of  the  Japanese  Shoguns. 
Setting  aside  all  legends  as  to  the  time  and  incidents  of  its 
manufacture  and  hanging,  a  recently  deciphered  inscription 
on  its  own  side  tells  the  date  as  1469  and  gives  the  names  of 
the  prominent  men  connected  with  the  undertaking.  The 
report  of  a  Chinese  envoy  of  1489,  who  says  of  the  bell,  "It 
calls  all  men  to  rest,  to  rise,  to  work,  to  play,"  taken  in 
conjunction  with  the  fact  that,  to  avoid  the  troubles  of  faction 
and  violence,  men  were  forbidden  on  the  streets  after  dark, 
probably  gave  rise  to  the  report  that  women  only  were  allowed 
to  go  abroad  at  night.  And  this  is  believed  by  natives  and 
travellers  until  the  present  hour.  But  the  bell,  which  once 
rung  to  open  and  close  the  massive  city  gates,  now  rings  only 
to  tell  of  midnight  and  mid-day.  And,  although  it  is  about 
eight  feet  in  diameter  and  ten  feet  high,  it  is  no  great  sight 
as  looked  at  by  peeking  through  the  bars  of  its  surrounding 


32  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

cage.  It  does,  however,  like  many  other  things  else  in  Seoul, 
bear  witness  to  the  life  of  the  past  and  the  changes  of  the 
present. 

The  marble  pagoda  is  at  the  same  time  the  most  notable 
existing  monument  of  Buddhism  in  Korea  and  the  most  in- 
teresting art-object  in  Seoul.  It  came,  however,  from  abroad ; 
tradition  connects  its  gift  with  a  Mongol  princess  who,  after 
the  death  of  Kublai  Khan,  came  to  Korea  in  1310  to  become 
the  queen-consort  of  King  Chung-sun.  It  was  brought  in 
a  junk  from  China  and  at  first  erected  in  the  grounds  of  a 
temple  in  the  little  town  of  Hanyang — the  predecessor  of 
Seoul  on  the  same  site;  for  the  capital  of  the  present  dynasty 
was  not  then  built.  The  temple  grounds  were  beautified  in 
its  honor;  roads  were  constructed  leading  to  it;  and  a 
bridge  was  built  over  a  stream  running  near  by.  But  the 
Korean  inevitable  happened  to  it — the  fate  meted  out  to  all 
that  shows  signs  of  order,  industry,  or  art,  when  not  of  im- 
mediate selfish  interest  to  the  rulers  of  Korea.  The  roads, 
encroached  upon  by  surrounding  hovels,  became  foul  and 
narrow  alleys;  a  squatter  built  his  straw-thatched  hut  about 
it;  and  the  stream  became  the  main  sewer  of  the  city,  which 
is  cleaned  only  by  the  downpour  of  the  summer  rains.  Thus, 
as  says  our  chronicler:  "The  gift  to  Korea  of  one  of  the 
mighty  Mongol  Khans,  whose  arms  had  literally  shaken  the 
world,  became  the  impedimenta  of  a  Korean  coolie's  back- 
yard, sixteen  by  twenty  feet  square!"  What  wonder,  how- 
ever, in  a  land  where  court  officials  and  palace  hangers-on 
do  not  hesitate  to-day  to  steal  the  screens,  and  other  presents 
from  foreign  monarchs  and  plutocrats,  out  from  under  His 
Majesty's  very  eyes!  * 

1  This  may  seem  incredible,  but  it  is  a  fact  that,  as  late  as  the  spring 
of  1907,  even  a  basket  of  fruit  could  not  be  sent  to  the  Emperor 
with  the  confidence  that  the  eunuchs  and  palace  servants  would  not 
steal  it  all.  At  every  garden-party  the  dishes  and  even  the  chairs  had 
to  be  carefully  watched. 


FIRST   GLIMPSES   OF   KOREA  33 

The  pagoda  itself,  which  has  now  been  cleared  from  the 
clutter  of  huts  and  made  the  central  object  in  Seoul's  first 
attempt  at  the  beginnings  of  a  public  park,  deserves  a  brief 
description.  It  is  of  white  marble,  much  stained  by  time, 
war,  and  neglect,  and  was  originally  thirteen  stories  in  height ; 
although  only  ten  of  these  are  now  standing,  while  the  upper 
three  have  been  removed  and  rest  beside  it  on  the  ground. 
The  base  and  first  six  stories  have  twenty  sides;  the  remainder 
are  squares.  Each  story  is  symmetrically  diminished  in 
size;  some  have  galleries  with  curved  eaves  and  upturned 
corners.  The  ornamentation  is  exceedingly  complicated  and 
abstruse  in  its  symbolism  and  suggestiveness.  There  are 
sculptured  upon  the  flat  surfaces  processions  of  tigers, 
dragons,  men  on  foot  and  on  horseback,  teachers  discoursing 
in  groves,  pictures  taken  from  the  traditional  life  of  Buddha, 
and  various  bas-reliefs  of  different  Buddhas.  The  lower 
stories  are  composed  of  several  blocks  of  carved  stone,  but 
the  smaller  and  upper  stories  are  monoliths. 

Near  the  pagoda  stands  the  Tortoise  Tablet,  a  very  an- 
cient structure;  the  tablet  is  said  originally  to  have  been 
brought  from  the  Southern  Kingdom  of  Scilla,  and  erected 
upon  the  ledge  of  granite  which  outcropped  in  this  place, 
after  the  rock  had  itself  been  carved  into  the  shape  of  a 
tortoise.  It  was  designed  to  memorialize  the  building  of  a 
temple  which  dates  back  to  the  eleventh  century  A.  D.  The 
tablet  is  probably  more  than  one  thousand  years  old. 

Within  the  small  enclosure  surrounding  these  relics,  Mr. 
Megata,  the  Japanese  financial  adviser  to  the  Korean  Gov- 
ernment, is  trying  to  encourage  the  public  spirit  of  the 
natives  and  entertain  the  resident  foreigners  by  providing 
band  concerts  on  Saturday  afternoons.  Thus  this  spot  also 
offers  a  study  in  epitome  of  the  history,  present  changes,  and 
future  prospects  of  the  capital  city  of  Korea. 

Of  the  few  shrines  which  the  royal  prohibition  of  Buddhism 


34  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

and  the  low  and  decaying  interest  in  all  religious  conceptions 
rising  above  the  level  of  spirit-worship  —  and  this  mostly  devil- 
worship  —  have  allowed  to  remain  in  Seoul,  the  only  ones  of 
any  particular  importance  are  the  Imperial  Ancestral  Shrines 
and  the  so-called  "Temple  to  Heaven."  But  even  the  guests 
of  Marquis  Ito  did  not  think  it  wise  to  ask  for  permission 
to  visit  these  shrines,  or  to  exhibit  any  more  curiosity  respect- 
ing them  than  to  glance  by  the  guard,  through  the  open  doors 
of  the  gateway,  while  passing  along  the  street.  As  to  the  New 
Palace,  which  is  a  stone  building  of  modified  Doric  archi- 
tecture, and  is  so  far  finished  externally  that  it  can  be  seen  to 
have  decided  claims  to  beauty,  if  only  the  superstitions  of  the 
monarch  and  of  his  counsellors  among  the  blind-men  and  the 
sorcerers  had  permitted  it  to  be  well  placed  —  this  was  ever 
before  our  eyes  from  the  windows  of  Miss  Sontag's  house. 
And  what  was  seen  of  the  buildings  occupied  at  the  time  of 
our  visit  by  His  Majesty  and  the  Court,  so  far  as  it  is  worth 
a  word,  will  be  described  in  another  place. 

The  Seoul  seen  from  the  surrounding  mountain-sides,  and 
the  Seoul  of  so-called  palaces,  is  not  the  city  in  which  the  people 
live,  ^part  from  a  few  of  its  inhabitants  —  such  as  the  mission- 
aries, certain  foreign  business  men  and  diplomatic  agents, 
together  with  a  small  number  of  native  officials  who  have  ac- 
quired a  taste  for  foreign  ways  —  the  Seoul  of  the  people  is 
andabectly  squalid.  It  is,  indeed,  not  so 


filthy  and  miserable,  and  lacking  in  all  the  comforts  and 
decencies  of  respectable  Western  life,  as  it  was  a  generation, 
or  even  a  few  years  ago.J  Several  of  the  streets  have  now 
been  —  not  only  occasionally  when  the  King  was  going  a 
"processioning"  through  them,  but  habitually  and  to  the 
benefit  of  the  populace  —  cleared  of  their  encroachments  of 
squatter  hovels,  huts,  and  booths.  The  gutters  along  the 
sides  of  these  streets  do  not  quite  so  much  as  formerly  disturb 
the  eyes  and  nostrils  of  the  pedestrian,  especially  if  he  walks 


FIRST  GLIMPSES  OF  KOREA  35 

in  the  middle  of  the  thoroughfare ;  their  use  for  vile  purposes 
is  not  so  much  in  evidence  as  was  the  case  before  any  of  the 
natives  had  even  .a  glimmering  sense  of  decency  about  such 
matters.  In  spite  of  the  increased  business  activity  of  the 
city  there  is  not  to-day  quite  the  same  stream  of  white-robed 
saunterers,  stately  in  gait  but  low  in  character,  to  give  a  semi- 
holiday  aspect  to  the  "Broadways"  of  Seoul;  for  electric  cars 
transport  the  multitudes  back  and  forth  in  several  directions. 
Besides,  there  is  the  neat,  attractive  Japanese  quarter.  Here, 
according  to  my  observation,  the  Koreans  themselves  were 
doing  more  sight-seeing  and  more  trading  than  in  their  own 
quarters;  for  here  the  cheaper  products  of  the  new  and 
hitherto  unknown  world  are  skilfully  displayed.  But  other- 
wise and  elsewhere  in  the  city,  the  same  unsanitary  conditions 
and  indecent  habits,  in  all  respects,  prevail.  The  narrow, 
winding  alleys  are  flanked  with  shallow,  open  ditches,  that 
are  not  only  the  drains  and  sewers  but  the  latrines  of  the 
dwellers  in  the  low  earth-walled  houses  on  either  side. 
fCowardly  and  lean  dogs,  naked  children,  and  rows  of  men 
squatting  and  sucking  their  long  pipes  or  lying  flat  upon  the 
ground,  crowd  and  obstruct  these  alleys.  And  from  them 
the  wide-spreading  Korean  roofs  cut  off  the  purifying  and 
enlivening  sunlight?)  Many  of  the  most  wretched  and 
unsanitary  of  thesTriovels  squat  under  the  shadow  of  the 
stately  city  wall.  May  its  stones  sometime  be  used  to  build 
a  better  and  healthier  city ! 

There  are,  however,  yet  more  notable  changes  and  im- 
provements than  those  already  accomplished,  which  seem 
destined  surely  and  speedily  to  follow.  A  water-supply,  for 
which  the  surveys  and  contracts  have  already  been  completed 
and  for  which,  during  our  visit,  the  pipes  were  beginning  to 
be  laid,  will  not  only  diminish  the  dangers  that  lurk  in  the 
cans  of  the  professional  water-carriers  and  in  the  private 
wells,  but  will  assist  the  summer  rains  in  their  formidable 


36  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

task  of  washing  clean  the  open  sewers.  More  of  these  foul, 
winding  alleys,  and  huddles  of  hovels,  will  be  abolished. 
The  increase  in  the  interests  of  life,  and  the  enjoyment  of  the 
rewards  of  protected  industry,  will  diminish  the  drunken- 
ness and  gluttony,  varied  by  enforced  periods  of  starvation, 
which  now  distress  the  people.  The  new  hospital  and  medical 
school — the  former  of  which  will  immediately  relieve  much 
suffering  and  the  latter  of  which  will  perform  the  yet  more 
important  service  of  educating  a  native  medical  class — are 
among  the  most  cherished  projects  of  the  Resident- General. 
And  when  to  these  more  essential  matters  there  is  added  the 
cultivation  of  the  native  love  of  nature  and  taste  for  flowers, 
it  is  not  an  extravagant  hope  to  picture  Seoul  as  becoming, 
in  many  respects,  a  not  undesirable  place  for  residence,  before 
many  years  are  past.  Even  now,  with  the  spring  covering 
of  bloom  from  plum,  apricot,  apple,  and  cherry,  and  with 
the  profusion  of  flowering  shrubs  which  adorns  the  valleys 
and  the  mountain-sides,  one  feels  incHned  to  overlook,  at 
least  for  the  months  of  April  and  May|j:he  foul  sights  of  the 
gutters  and  the  surrounding  hovels/}  But  all  this  was,  as  it 
were,  only  background  and  theatre  for  the  work  I  wished  to 
do  and  the  observations  I  wished  to  make. 


CHAPTER  III 

LIFE   IN   SEOUL 

AFTER  accepting  Marquis  Ito's  formal  invitation  to 
attempt  a  special  kind  of  service  in  Korea,  the  first  problem 
to  be  solved  concerned  the  choice  of  ways  for  approaching 
that  service.  Its  solution  was  by  no  means  obvious.  In 
Japan  there  were  more  of  urgent  requests  for  public  addresses 
and  lectures  of  various  kinds  than  could  possibly  be  accepted. 
And  everywhere  that  the  speaker  went,  influential  and  large 
organizations  of  an  educational  and  public  character,  to 
whose  support  the  governors,  of  the  Kens  and  the  mayors  of 
the  cities  were  officially  committed,  could  be  relied  upon  to 
make  all  necessary  arrangements  and  to  carry  the  arrange- 
ments through  effectively.  More  important  still,  there  was 
the  most  eager  interest  in  the  subjects  upon  which  the  pros- 
pective audiences  wished  to  be  addressed,  and  the  attitude 
of  an  open  mind  and  even  of  warm  personal  attachment 
toward  "the  friend  of  Japan."  \In  Korea,  however,  all  the 
influences  would  be  of  precisely  the  opposite  character — 
indifference,  deficiencies,  hindrances,  if  not  active  opposition, 
so  far  as  the  native  attitude  was  concerned^  In  Korea  there 
were  no  educational  associations;  and,  outside  of  a  very  small 
circle  in  a  few  cities,  there  was  little  or  no  interest  in  educa- 
tion. The  local  magistrates  were,  almost  without  exception, 
devoted  to  "squeezes"  rather  than  to  the  increase  of  intelli- 
gence and  the  moral  improvement  of  their  districts.  The 
teachers  of  the  few  existing  schools  were,  in  general,  without 

37 


38  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

any  modern  culture;  they  were  even  without  the  most  rudi- 
mentary ideas  on  the  subjects  of  pedagogy,  ethics,  and 
religion.  Only  in  a  small  number  of  places  were  there  any 
halls  that  could  accommodate  an  audience,  should  one  be 
gathered  by  an  appeal  to  curiosity  and  to  the  Korean  thirst 
for  "look-see";  while  to  be  known  as  a  "friend  of  Japan" 
and  a  guest  of  Marquis  Ito  was  to  erect  an  almost  insuperable 
obstacle  in  the  way  of  reaching  the  ears  of  the  Korean  upper 
and  middle  classes,  to  say  nothing  of  convincing  their  minds 
or  touching  their  hearts.  Addressing  the  lower  classes  on 
any  scholastic  topic  was  impossible.  Through  what  organ, 
then,  could  a  stranger  help  the  Resident-General  in  his  be- 
nevolent plans  for  the  welfare  of  the  people  of  Korea? 

Reflection  upon  this  problem  of  a  means  of  approach  to 
the  Koreans  ended  in  the  fortunate  choice  of  the  Young 
Men's  Christian  Association  at  Seoul.  To  be  sure,  the  direct 
influence  of  this  association  is  at  present  wisely  limited  to  the 
capital  city.  The  illicit  organization  of  branch  associations, 
which  was  undertaken  for  political  purposes  by  the  Koreans 
themselves,  has  made  it  necessary  to  check,  rather  than  en- 
courage, all  efforts  to  multiply  Y.  M.  C.  A.  societies  in  places 
beyond  the  immediate  and  unceasingly  watchful  control  of 
the  foreign  secretaries.  The  same  hypocritical  and  unscru- 
pulous use  of  the  name  of  religion  for  purposes  of  political 
intrigue  compelled  the  Methodist  Mission  in  Korea  to  break 
up  the  "Epworth  League."  A  letter  to  a  friend  in  Tokyo, 
explaining  my  purposes  and  my  embarrassment,  resulted  in 
the  following  telegram,  which  was  received  in  Shimonoseki 
late  in  the  evening  of  the  day  before  sailing  for  Fusan: 

Secretary  Seoul  telegraphs  Seoul  Association  platform  gladly 
open.  Indications  other  cities  will  extend  same  courtesy,  espe- 
cially after  tenth. 

These  words  illumined  to  no  small  degree  the  prospect  of  estab- 
lishing relations  favorable  to  the  success  of  the  proposed  plans. 


LIFE   IN  SEOUL  39 

In  this  connection  it  is  pertinent  to  say  that  I  had  been 
advised  to  seek  especially  the  counsel  and  assistance  of 
Bishop  Turner  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  of  the  Korean, 
Mr.  Yun  Chi-ho.  The  Bishop  was  the  president  of  the 
Young  Men's  Association;  and  the  Korean  gentleman  is  of 
good  family,  has  a  well-merited  reputation  for  honesty,  and 
has  been  prominent  in  religious  work  among  his  own  people. 
As  the  history  of  my  experiences  will  show,  I  was  disappointed 
with  respect  to  both  these  sources  of  information  and  help. 
Bishop  Turner  was  either  absent  or  ill  during  nearly  the  entire 
time  of  my  stay  in  Korea;  and  Mr.  Yun  Chi-ho  exhibited  so 
persistently  and  adroitly  the  qualities  which  I  had  heard 
described  as  "a  pessimistic  disposition,"  and  which  in  the 
opinion  of  all  who  knew  him,  both  natives  and  foreigners, 
unfitted  him  for  incurring  any  of  the  responsibilities  of 
leadership,  as  to  somewhat  hamper  rather  than  assist  any 
efforts  in  behalf  of  his  own  people.  It  was  not,  of  course,  to 
be  expected  that  a  Korean  Yang-ban  should  willingly  con- 
fess the  demonstrated  incapacity  of  the  Korean  nation  for 
self-government;  even  less,  perhaps,  that  he  should  himself 
assist  the  Japanese  in  doing  for  his  own  people  what  they 
never  have  done,  and  never  could  do,  for  themselves.  But 
that  intelligent  native  Christians  should  take  an  attitude  of 
passive  opposition  to  offers  of  assistance  on  matters  of  educa- 
tion, morality  and  religion  from  a  friendly  foreigner  of 
another  nation,  simply  because  that  foreigner  was  the  guest 
of  the  Japanese  Resident- General,  shows  how  characteristic 
and  deep-seated  are  the  obstacles  which  therofficial  class  are 
opposing  to  the  redemption  of  Korea.  But  I  was  to  witness 
the  manifestation  of  the  extreme  form  of  the  same  feeling 
toward  the  association  of  those  of  their  own  countrymen  who 
were  co-operating  with  the  Japanese  in  plans  for  reform. 

The  morning  after  our  arrival  in  Seoul,  at  about  10.30 
o'clock,  Marquis  Ito  sent  Mr.  Zumoto  to  conduct  me  to  his 


40  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

private  office  in  the  Residency  House.  The  official  residence 
is  one  of  a  group  of  buildings  belonging  to  the  Japanese  Gov- 
ernment and  situated  upon  a  succession  of  spurs  from  the 
mountain  Nam-san,  in  a  portion  of  the  city  which  lies  beyond 
the  Japanese  quarters.  The  surrounding  grounds,  especially 
from  points  above  the  house,  command  fine  views  of  the  city, 
and  are  being  constantly  improved  and  beautified  in  ac- 
cordance with  Japanese  taste.  So  lonely  are  the  mountain- 
ous heights  above  the  grounds  that  numerous  wild-cats  have 
descended  upon  the  chicken-yard  of  the  Residency,  and 
more  than  a  dozen  of  these  pests  have  been  caught  in  traps 
and  are  now  caged  as  part  of  a  small  menagerie  or  private 
"Zoo."  QThere  are  persons  now  living  in  Seoul,  not  of 
advanced  age,  who  have  encountered  tigers  of  the  "man- 
eating"  species,  to  say  nothing  of  less  formidable  wild  beasts, 
such  as  leopards  and  foxes,  within  the  city  wallsj 

At  this  morning's  interview  the  Marquis  was  the  first  to 
speak,  after  a  few  minutes  of  silence  which  followed  the 
exchange  of  greetings.  But  it  was  only  to  say  that,  of  course, 
he  could  procure  me  invitations  from  the  Japanese  to  give 
public  addresses,  and  even,  he  presumed,  from  the  Koreans; 
this,  however — especially  in  the  latter  case — would  probably 
embarrass  my  work,  since  it  would  subject  it  to  suspicion. 
After  these  words  he  paused  in  a  way  to  suggest  an  invita- 
tion for  me  to  speak  freely  of  my  plans.  I  began  by  saying 
that  I  had  no  training  or  experience  in  matters  of  diplomacy; 
but  I  believed  that,  for  me  at  least,  the  best  course  of  action 
would  conform  to  these  two  rules:  to  be  entirely  frank  and 
good-tempered  when  you  had  anything  to  say;  and  to  know 
when  and  how  to  hold  your  tongue  if  silence  seemed  the 
proper  policy.  At  this  the  Marquis  laughed — it  seemed 
approvingly.  In  brief,  the  plans,  as  far  as  formed  at  present, 
were  as  follows.  As  to  Mission: — Public:  I  was  here  as  the 
guest  of  Marquis  Ito,  to  speak  to  the  Koreans  in  a  sincerely 


LIFE  IN  SEOUL  41 

friendly  way,  on  matters  of  education,  morals,  and  religion, 
especially  as  these  matters  concerned  their  national  welfare; 
private:  to  discover  what  I  could  which  might  assist  the 
Resident-General  in  dealing  with  his  difficult  problem  and 
to  assure  all,  whom  I  could  reach,  that  he  sincerely  wished 
to  serve  the  real  interests  of  the  Koreans  and  to  secure  for 
them  the  administration  of  justice  and  an  increased  pros- 
perity. As  to  Message: — Public :  that  the  real  prosperity  of 
the  individual  and  of  society  can  be  secured  only  by  develop- 
ing a  character  which  deserves  it;  and  private,  as  already 
defined  by  the  private  mission.  As  to  Means: — Since  there 
are  in  Korea  no  Teachers'  Associations,  I  hoped  to  work 
through  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  and  through 
such  other  connected  agencies  as  they  might  secure;  and 
especially  to  get  opportunities  to  address  Missionary  Schools 
and  Christian  congregations  in  the  churches.  I  also  hoped 
to  form  friendly  relations  with  the  missionaries  and  with  some 
of  the  diplomats  and  foreign  business  men  in  order  to  learn 
their  views  of  the  situation  and  to  gain  from  them  information 
and  suggestions  for  its  improvement.  Especially  did  it  seem 
to  me  desirable  that  the  spiritual  forces  wielded  by  the  mis- 
sionaries should  co-operate  for  the  good  of  Korea  with  the 
political  forces  wielded  by  the  Resident- General. 

At  this  first  interview,  as  at  all  subsequent  interviews 
during  my  stay  in  Korea,  the  Resident-General  uniformly 
replied  in  the  negative  to  every  request  for  criticism  of  my 
plans,  or  even  for  suggestions  as  to  their  improvement.  On 
one  particular  occasion  when  I  ventured  to  repeat  the  ques- 
tion: "But  has  the  Marquis  no  suggstions  to  make?"  the 
same  answer,  "No,  I  have  no  suggestions  to  offer,"  was  re- 
turned. When  I  afterwards  asked  the  only  third  person 
who  was  ever  present  at  any  of  these  interviews  whether 
after  my  departure  some  comments  had  not  been  made 
which  might  assist  in  deciding  upon  the  best  course  of  action, 


42  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

the  reply  again  was  an  unqualified  negative.  And  upon  sur- 
prise being  expressed  at  this,  the  remark  followed:  "It  is 
the  custom  of  the  Marquis,  when  he  trusts  any  one,  to  trust 
him  completely."  And,  indeed,  the  promise  to  leave  me 
absolutely  independent,  which  had  been  made  in  private 
and  which  was  soon  made  public,  wras,  throughout,  most 
strictly  kept. 

The  same  day,  after  tiffm,  one  of  the  under-secretaries  of 
the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  in  the  absence  of  Mr.  Gillett,  the  Chief 
Secretary,  called  upon  me  for  the  discussion  of  plans  and 
topics  for  the  lectures  in  Korea.  It  then  became  evident 
that  the  manner  of  coming  would,  as  had  been  suspected, 
prejudice  the  Koreans  against  the  speaker  and  his  words. 
Secretary  Brockman,  indeed,  agreed  with  me  in  thinking 
that  a  large  measure  of  frankness  was  desirable.  But  the 
Korean  officers  and  members  of  the  Association  were  timid. 
It  appeared  that  the  Korean  Daily  News  had  already 
reminded  its  readers,  with  a  sinister  warning,  that  Professor 
Ladd  did  not  come  from  America,  but  from  Tokyo,  to  Korea. 
The  effect  of  this,  with  all  it  implied,  will  soon  appear.  Any 
more  definite  decision  as  to  ways  of  procedure  was,  therefore, 
deferred  until  further  consultation  could  be  had  with  those 
chiefly  interested  in  the  affairs  of  the  Association  and  the 
moral  and  religious  welfare  of  the  Korean  people. 

The  next  morning  a  committee  of  three,  representing  the 
Association  and  the  two  principal  Missions  doing  work  in 
Seoul,  called,  and  two  hours  of  friendly  discussion  followed 
over  the  wisest  method  of  solving  this  problem:  How  to 
employ  the  American  guest  of  the  Japanese  Resident-General 
as  a  teacher  of  education,  morals,  and  religion,  under  existing 
conditions,  to  Korean  audiences.  A  complex  problem  truly! 
From  the  first,  the  lecturer  himself  insisted  upon  a  continu- 
ance of  the  open  and  frank  policy  of  approach;  any  attempt 
at  concealment  of  his  relations  to  Marquis  Ito  and  of  his  con- 


LIFE   IN   SEOUL  43 

fidence  in  the  Marquis'  plans  for  helping  Korea  would  only 
result  in  an  increase  of  prejudice,  suspicion,  and  in  other  invita- 
tions to  failure.  It  was  during  the  course  of  this  discussion  that 
one  of  the  missionary  members  of  the  committee  frankly 
declared  his  continued  unwillingness,  previously  expressed, 
to  have  anything  to  do  with  a  plan  for  "smoothing  the  way" 
for  the  Japanese.  In  case  this  was  Professor  Ladd's  pur- 
pose, "let  him  go  ahead  and  smooth  the  way,  if  he  could;  for 
his  own  part  he  wished  to  be  counted  out."  The  conference, 
however,  ended  in  the  harmonious  agreement  that  three  lectures 
should  be  given  within  the  next  week,  under  the  auspices  of 
the  Young  Men's  Association.  These  were  to  have  dates 
as  follows;  for  the  next  Saturday  evening,  upon  the  subject, 
"Education  and  the  Social  Welfare";  for  Sunday  afternoon, 
upon  the  subject,  "Religion  and  Social  Reform";  and  for 
Monday  evening,  upon  "  Education  as  Related  to  the  Stability 
and  Progress  of  the  Nation."  It  was  originally  intended  that 
the  address  of  Sunday  should  be  given  in  "Independence 
Hall,"  the  largest  public  room  in  Seoul,  which,  however, 
stands  outside  of  the  city  walls  near  "Independence  Arch"- 
a  structure  erected  to  commemorate  the  formal  renunciation  of 
the  suzerainty  of  China.  The  other  lectures  were  to  be  given 
in  the  Association  Hall,  a  temporary  building  of  bare  boards, 
situated  in  a  more  central  location.  Application,  however, 
for  the  use  of  Independence  Hall  was  met  by  the  information 
that  it  was  already  engaged  for  next  Sunday.  It  was  then 
suspected  that  this  was  only  an  indirect  and  insincere  method 
of  refusal;  I  am  not  even  now  sure  as  to  whether  or  not  the 
suspicion  was  correct. 

On  the  next  day  a  cordial  invitation  came  from  the  mis- 
sionaries of  both  missions  in  Pyeng-yang  to  visit  them  and 
speak  there  as  many  times  as  I  might  be  able.  The  narra- 
tive of  this  interesting  visit  is  to  be  told  elsewhere.  But  the 
difference  between  the  attitude  of  the  Koreans  toward  me 


44  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

in  places  outside  of  the  capital,  where  the  corruption,  fears, 
and  prejudices  of  the  Yang-bans  (or  ruling  class)  are  less 
dominant — although  some  of  these  places  have  really  suf- 
fered more  from  the  Japanese  than  has  Seoul — shows  in  what 
motives  and  interests  the  anti- Japanese  feeling  is  chiefly 
seated.  It  is  in  Seoul,  especially,  that  many  of  the  mission- 
aries seem  not  to  have  kept  themselves  altogether  free  from 
the  same  unworthy  Court  influences. 

It  was  on  Saturday,  March  30,  at  3.30  P.M.,  according 
to  a  notice  sent  the  day  before,  that  I  was  received  in  audi- 
ence by  the  Korean  Emperor.  Under  the  escort  of  the 
Marquis'  secretary,  Mr.  Kurachi,  and  a  Korean  aide-de-camp, 
I  went  in  a  jinrikisha  to  the  small  gate  of  the  palace  which 
is  very  near  to  Miss  Sontag's  house,  and  dismounting  there, 
passed  through  rather  irregular  and  intermittent  lines  of 
palace  guards  to  the  building  where  the  audience  was  to  take 
place.  The  rooms  used  for  such  functions,  while  the  new 
palace  is  still  in  process  of  erection,  are  far  enough  from 
anything  approaching  royal  magnificence.  The  aspect  and 
furnishings  of  the  entrance  hall  would  scarcely  rival  a  third- 
class  hotel  in  Europe  or  the  United  States.  The  same  thing 
is  true  of  the  waiting-room  and  of  the  audience-chamber 
itself.  On  arrival  I  was  shown  into  the  former  apartment, 
where  were  already  gathered  some  of  the  prominent  Korean 
officials,  including  the  Prime  Minister,  the  Master  of  Cere- 
monies, and  several  officers  of  high  rank  in  the  Korean  army. 
The  entrance  of  Marquis  Ito  with  his  suite  soon  after  filled 
the  small  room  with  men  whose  gorgeous  apparel  contrasted 
strongly  with  the  cheap  woodwork,  which  was  painted  light- 
pink  and  trimmed  in  light-green;  and  with  its  tawdry 
European  furnishings.  Almost  immediately  the  little  Prince, 
son  of  Lady  Om,  entered,  and  with  an  amusing  air  of  boyish 
dignity,  made  more  effective  by  the  mannish  costume  of  top- 
knot and  crinoline  hat  with  which  he  had  recently  been  in- 


LIFE   IN   SEOUL  45 

vested,  came  straight  up  to  me  and  gravely  held  out  his  hand. 
The  young  Prince  has  bright  eyes,  an  intelligent  but  almost 
completely  full-moon-shaped  face,  and  a  .protuding  abdomen 
suggestive  of  over-indulgence  in  sweets  and  other  fattening 
foods.  At  the  mature  age  of  eleven  years  he  had  just  secured 
the  coveted  honor  of  the  man's  investiture,  as  described 
above.  And  seven  maidens  of  suitable  rank  and  age  had 
already  been  selected,  one  of  whom  would  subsequently  sus- 
tain the  ordeal  of  being  chosen  as  his  consort  and  future  wife. 
After  the  hand-shaking  and  an  interchange  of  courteous 
salutations,  the  boy  disappeared.  While  waiting,  I  was  being 
introduced  to  one  official,  Korean  or  Japanese,  after  an- 
other; but  so  often  as  I  rose  for  this  purpose,  I  was  politely 
requested  by  the  Korean  aide-de-camp  to  be  seated  again. 

The  Resident- General  and  some  of  his  suite  went  to  the 
audience-room  some  minutes  before  I  was  summoned  to 
follow.  It  was  my  conjecture,  from  what  His  Majesty  sub- 
sequently said,  that  he  was  being  told  something  about  me 
and  about  the  work  which  I  was  to  attempt  in  Korea.  In  a 
still  later  interview  with  Marquis  Ito  I  learned  the  truth 
of  this  conjecture.  The  Emperor  had  been  assured  that  the 
visitor's  purposes  were  not  political;  but  the  Resident- 
General,  believing  that  his  lectures  on  matters  educational 
and  ethical  had  been  of  service  in  Japan,  had  invited  him  to 
come  to  Korea  to  assist  in  contributing  to  the  same  important 
interests  here. 

On  being  invited  to  do  so  by  the  Court  interpreter,  I  fol- 
lowed him  to  the  audience-room.  Any  expectation  of  being 
conducted  through  stately  corridors  to  a  splendid  throne-room 
was  speedily  disappointed.  The  audience-room  was  as  near  the 
waiting-room  as  two  small  rooms  can  well  be.  It  was  itself 
so  small  that  there  was  difficulty  in  making  the  requisite  three 
bows  before  standing  face  to  face  with  His  Majesty,  separated 
only  by  a  round  table  of  the  most  ordinary  sort.  At  his  right 


46  IN   KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

side  stood,  not  the  Crown  Prince,  the  son  of  the  late  Queen, 
but  the  son  of  Lady  Om.  Before  I  had  come  near  enough 
to  take  it,  and  indeed  before  I  had  made  my  third  bow,  the 
Emperor  held  out  his  hand.  He  is  in  appearance  a  quite 
ordinary  man,  of  the  Korean  type;  and  there  was  nothing 
worthy  of  notice  about  his  plain  Korean  dress.  His  face  wore 
the  pleasant  smile  with  which  he  is  said  to  greet  all  foreigners 
(for,  as  our  hostess  says:  "//  est  tres  gentil,  tres  aimable"); 
although  its  aesthetical  effect  is  somewhat  hindered  by  a  bad 
set  of  teeth. 

His  Majesty  expressed  the  hope  that  I  had  a  pleasant  trip 
and  was  very  comfortable  and  enjoying  myself.  A  favorable 
answer,  and  especially  an  expression  of  pleasure  at  Korea's 
beautiful  mountain  scenery  and  delightful  climate,  elicited 
the  remark — he  still  smiling,  while  the  young  Prince  looked 
as  solemn  as  an  owl — that,  "besides  the  climate  and  the 
mountains,  there  was  nothing  else  of  interest  in  Korea." 
"I  cannot  quite  agree  with  Your  Majesty,"  was  the  response, 
"for  I  find  the  people  and  the  country  very  interesting  and  I 
am  sure  that  my  interest  will  increase  the  longer  I  stay." 
The  Emperor  then  went  on  to  say  that  he  was  glad  to  learn 
I  had  come  to  instruct  his  people  in  right  ways ;  that  he  hoped 
they  would  open  their  minds  to  enlightenment  and  to  modern 
ideas;  and  that  my  addresses  would  contribute  to  their 
progress.  I  answered  that  I  should  sincerely  endeavor,  by 
speaking  on  the  same  subjects  on  which  I  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  speak  in  my  own  country,  in  England,  India,  Japan, 
and  elsewhere,  to  contribute  some  little  help  to  the  same 
good  cause  in  Korea.  Up  to  this  time,  no  sign  of  permission 
had  been  given  to  take  my  dismissal,  and,  indeed,  once  when 
a  movement  to  withdraw  had  been  made,  a  half-gesture  had 
prevented  it;  but  now  His  Majesty  held  out  his  hand.  After 
taking  it,  I  bowed  and  backed  out  safely  over  the  threshold — 
a  manoeuvre  made  the  easier  by  the  small  size  of  the  room. 


LIFE   IN   SEOUL  47 

On  returning  to  the  waiting-room  the  question  was  asked 
whether  the  Crown  Prince  was  present  with  his  father;  and 
no  little  surprise  seemed  to  be  excited  by  the  fact  that  Lady 
Om's  son  had  on  this  occasion  taken  the  place  on  the  Em- 
peror's right  hand  customarily  occupied  by  the  older  half- 
brother.  After  the  entrance  again  of  the  Marquis  Ito  with 
his  suite,  and  of  the  Korean  officials,  to  the  room  for  waiting, 
light  refreshments  were  served;  the  ceremony  was  then  con- 
sidered at  an  end. 

My  first  experience  of  lecturing  to  a  Korean  audience  came 
on  the  evening  of  the  same  day.  While  waiting  in  the  small, 
dingy  rooms  of  the  Korean  building,  then  used  for  offices  by 
the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  of  Seoul,  I  was  intro- 
duced to  several  prominent  Korean  Christians.  The  most 
interesting  of  these  was  the  pastor  of  one  of  the  Korean 
churches,  a  member  of  a  high-class  family  and  one  of  the 
very  few  of  his  countrymen  who  combines  a  truly  manly 
native  character  with  a  profession  of  the  foreign  faith.  This 
man  had  been  chosen  by  the  Crown  Prince  to  assist  at  the 
obsequies  of  his  mother,  the  murdered  Queen.  The  struggles 
with  his  conscience,  which  forbade  him  either  to  take  part  in 
heathenish  rites,  or  escape  with  a  lie,  by  feigning  illness,  or 
crawl  out  of  the  dilemma  by  resigning  the  official  position  he 
then  held,  made  an  interesting  story.  This  man  solved  his 
problem  of  conscience  in  truly  loyal  style.  And  when  the 
Christian  pastor  told  his  heathen  prince  that  he  could  not 
go,  and,  as  well,  the  reason  why,  instead  of  ordering  him 
punished  the  latter  said:  "Why  did  you  not  let  me  know 
beforehand  that  you  are  a  Christian,  and  then  I  should  not 
have  asked  you?  Go  in  peace." 

The  lecture  began  late.  The  hall  was  crowded  with  some 
600  Koreans,  seated  on  the  floor,  standing  in  the  open  space 
about  the  door,  and  perched  in  the  windows.  Besides  the 
native  audience,  a  few  missionaries  and  three  or  four  Japanese 


48  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

friends  were  the  only  foreigners  present.  The  arrangements 
for  enforcing  order  were  unusual  and  interesting.  A  number 
of  young  men,  designated  by  badges,  were  posted  near  the 
door  or  distributed  about  the  hall.  Their  office  res'embled, 
apparently,  that  of  the  tithing-man  in  the  Puritan  churches  of 
a  century  gone  by.  Boys  who  became  too  restless  were  ad- 
monished and  sometimes  even  gently  rapped  or  pulled  into 
place;  and  those  who  wished  to  leave  the  hall  were  prevented 
from  doing  so  unless  they  could  give'  peremptory  reasons  for 
the  wish.  It  was  deemed  complimentary  to  the  speaker  that 
he  did  not  develop  any  considerable  number  of  this  class  of 
hearers;  and,  indeed,  this  particular  audience  was  called 
attentive.  It  was,  in  truth,  fairly  so;  although  not  after  the 
pattern  of  the  altogether  respectful  and  quiet  manners  of  the 
Japanese  audiences.  Indeed,  there  was  always  considerable 
restlessness  and  undoubted  evidence  of  that  kind  of  applause 
which  imitates  what  the  French  call  claque,  in  the  Korean 
audiences  at  Seoul.  On  the  one  hand  there  was  a  lack  of 
that  intelligent  and  serious  interest  in  the  discussion  of 
questions  of  education,  morals,  and  religion  which  one  meets 
everywhere  in  Japan;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was 
response  by  clapping  of  hands  to  any  remarks  which  touched 
one's  hearers  on  the  side  of  sentiment  in  an  appeal  to  their 
personal  or  national  experiences  of  injustice,  pride,  and 
weakness  mingled  with  a  certain  form  of  ambition.  These 
different  characteristics  may  safely  be  interpreted  as  marking 
essential  differences  between  the  present  attitudes  and  pros- 
pective developments  of  the  two  peoples. 

This  lecture,  as  were  all  the  lectures  delivered  to  the 
Koreans  (since  they  were  without  exception  given  under  the 
auspices  of  either  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  or  of  the  missionaries), 
was  opened  by  religious  exercises.  Dr.  Jones  introduced  the 
speaker;  and  Mr.  Reynolds,  whose  reputation  for  a  knowledge 
of  the  Korean  language  has  secured  him  a  prominent  place 


LIFE  IN  SEOUL  49 

in  the  work  of  translating  the  Scriptures,  interpreted.  The 
speaker  availed  himself  of  the  words  which  the  Emperor  had 
that  afternoon  spoken  in  commendation  of  his  purpose  in  visiting 
the  country,  to  propitiate  his  first  Korean  audience.  At  the 
end  of  the  two  hours  the  foreigners  present  expressed  them- 
selves as  well  satisfied  with  the  beginning  which  had  been  made. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day,  which  was  Sunday,  the 
audience  was  equally  large,  and  the  attention  about  equally 
good;  although  the  drizzle  of  rain  which  came  on  during  the 
hours  of  meeting  made  some  of  the  Korean  men  as  nervous 
about  the  damage  threatening  their  best-wear  crinoline  hats 
as  American  women  are  wont  to  be  about  their  bonnets,  under 
similar  circumstances,  on  an  Easter  Sunday.  As  we  entered 
the  hall,  Dr.  Avison  was  leading  the  audience  in  singing. 
The  quality  of  the  song  was  not  high,  but  it  was  perhaps 
equal  to  that  attainable  in  Japan,  outside  of  the  Greek 
Cathedral  at  the  time  of  my  first  visit  fifteen  years  ago. 
The  Koreans. are  probably  more  fond  of  music,  and  more  apt 
at  learning,  than  are  the  Japanese.  Already,  under  the 
training  of  their  German  teacher,  Professor  Eckert,  a  Korean 
band  is  giving  to  Seoul  fairly  creditable  music.  This  service 
of  song  continued  for  about  one-half  hour  and  ended  with  the 
performance  of  a  quartette  by  Korean  young  men,  one  of 
whom  is  Chamberlain  to  the  Crown  Prince  and  a  nephew 
of  the  Emperor.  This  Sunday's  audience  was  almost  ex- 
clusively Christian. 

The  next  evening's  audience  was  not  quite  so  large  as  the 
others  had  been,  but  was  obviously  of  much  higher  intel- 
lectual quality.  More  of  the  prominent  men  of  the  official 
class,  apparently  attracted  by  the  nature  of  the  theme,  were 
present.  They  responded  with  increasing  enthusiasm  to 
Dr.  Jones'  clear  and  vigorous  interpretation  of  my  remarks 
upon  the  dangers  to  the  national  life  which  grow  out  of  su- 
perstition, lawlessness,  partisanship,  selfish  ambition  and 


50  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

avarice,  and  a  frivolous,  irreverent  spirit.  At  the  close  of 
the  lecture  the  audience  rose  to  their  feet  and  waved  toward 
me  their  uplifted  hands  as  a  greeting,  equivalent  to  the 
Japanese  banzai—  thus  making  an  encouraging  ending  to 
the  first  series  of  lectures  in  Seoul. 

On  our  return  from  Pyeng-yang  it  was  arranged  that 
a  course  of  three  lectures  should  be  given  in  the  hall  of  the 
Young  Men's  Association  to  the  teachers,  and  one  or  more 
popular  addresses  in  Independence  Hall,  if  this  larger 
building  could  be  obtained.  To  secure  an  audience  for  the 
teachers'  course,  some  400  tickets  of  invitation  were  issued 
and  distributed  by  Korean  helpers.  The  report  of  the  eager- 
ness with  which  these  tickets  were  sought  led  the  secretary 
of  the  association  to  predict  that  three  hundred  at  least  would 
gather  to  hear  discussed  such  topics  as  the  following:  "The 
Work  of  the  Teacher,"  "The  Preparation  of  the  Teacher," 
"The  Ideals  of  the  Teacher."  The  lecturer  himself  esti- 
mated that  an  audience  of  as  many  as  fifty  would  be  entirely 
satisfactory.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  somewhat  more  than  one 
hundred  appeared  at  the  appointed  hour.  The  Korean 
helpers  who  had  distributed  the  tickets  accounted  for  the 
discrepancy  between  the  fact  and  their  anticipations  by  the 
persistence  of  the  rumor  that  I  had  come  to  Korea  to  take 
a  permanent  official  position  under  the  Japanese  Government. 
[Indeed,  this  was  the  prevalent  opinion  in  Korean  official 
circles — and  even  among  some  of  the  foreigners — until  the 
date  of  our  leaving  the  country.]  But  the  same  question 
arose  again:  Had  the  Korean  Christian  helpers  really  told 
the  truth  and  had  they  been  faithful  to  their  work;  or  had 
they  dealt  with  their  commission  treacherously  and  brought 
back  a  false  report?  In  either  case  it  was  obvious  that  the 
teachers  of  the  public  schools  had  diplomatically  refrained 
from  attendance,  under  circumstances  which  might  indicate 
a  relaxing  of  their  anti- Japanese  sentiments.  However, 


LIFE  IN  SEOUL  51 

certain  of  the  Government  officers  now  promised  to  send  out     \ 
word  that  attendance  was  cojmnajidedt  and  a  large  increase      ) 
was  expected  at  the  next  lecture.     Whatever  was  the  real/ 
cause  of  the  first  disappointment,  the  audiences  were,  in  fact, 
about  doubled  at  the  following  two  lectures.     They  were  also 
officially  dignified  by  the  presence  of  the  Vice-Minister  of 
Education,    who,    alas!     soon    afterward    was    arrested   for 
contributing   1,200  yen  to  a  conspiracy  of  assassination  in- 
volving his  own  chief;    he  confessed  to  this  intensity  of  his 
patriotism,    underwent,    according    to    current    report,    the 
preliminary  examination  by  being  beaten  with  rods,  and  was 
still  in  prison  when  we  left  Korea.     As  touching  the  moral 
efficiency  of  the  lectures,  however,  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that 
the  evil  deed  had  been  done  some  time  previous  to  the  culprit's 
opportunity  for  benefiting  by  their  influence. 

At  the  close  of  this  course  on  educational  topics  to  the 
Korean  teachers  of  Seoul,  one  of  the  officials  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  Education  detained  the  audience  by  a  long  and  some- 
what impassioned  address.  In  this  he  heartily  thanked  the 
lecturer  and  exhorted  the  teachers  to  a  better  fulfilment  of 
their  duties — at  the  same  time  lamenting  bitterly  the  sad 
condition  of  educational  interests  in  their  native  land.  Then 
one  of  the  Korean  secretaries  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  compli- 
mented the  audience  on  their  excellent  behavior  while  in  the 
hall.  This  conduct  of  themselves  had  been  in  accordance 
with  their  profession  as  teachers.  They  had  not  yawned,  or 
belched,  or  interrupted  the  speaker  by  leaving  the  room 
while  he  was  speaking,  after  the  customary  behavior  of  Korean 
audiences  of  the  uneducated  classes.  It  should  be  said, 
however,  that  one  of  the  many  minor  indirect  benefits  to  the 
Korean  people  which  are  largely  due  to  Christian  missions 
is  this:  discipline  in  remaining  fairly  quiet  and  attentive 
while  listening  to  others  speaking.  The  unregenerate  native 
manners  in  public  meetings  are  most  abominable. 


52  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Finally,  after  several  disappointments  and  rebuffs,  Mr. 
Gillett  succeeded  in  obtaining  Independence  Hall  for  Sunday 
afternoon  of  April  2ist.  On  our  way  out  to  the  meeting  and 
back  again  he  revealed  the  fact  that,  on  account  of  the  op- 
position to  me  as  the  guest  of  Marquis  Ito,  he  had  been 
unable  to  get  the  meeting  advertised  as  widely  and  effectively 
as  he  desired.  Whether  this  was  due  to  the  unwillingness 
and  unfaithfulness  of  his  Korean  helpers,  or  to  the  determina- 
tion of  the  native  edition  of  the  Korean  Daily  News  to 
oppose  and  traduce  everything  even  remotely  connected 
with  Japan,  I  did  not  inquire.  But  I  decided,  and  asked  the 
secretary  to  communicate  my  decision  to  his  native  helpers, 
that  this  should  be  my  last  address  to  the  Koreans  in  Seoul, 
unless  invited  by  the  Koreans  themselves.  Was  there  not 
here,  I  asked,  a  small  body  of  leading  Christian  helpers  with 
courage  and  manliness  enough  to  set  themselves  against  the 
prejudices  of  their  countrymen  by  expressing  spontaneously 
their  willingness  to  hear  truths  about  education,  morals,  and 
religion,  from  one  who  was  the  friend  of  the  Japanese  as  well 
as  their  own  nation's  friend? 

In  spite  of  the  insufficient  advertising,  Independence  Hall 
was  fairly  well  filled.  Some  1,500  to  1,600  were  present; 
although  perhaps  500  or  600  of  the  audience  were  boys, 
some  of  whom  were  not  more  than  ten  or  twelve  years  of  age. 
Much  time  was  consumed  in  settling  upon  the  floor  in  the 
front  part  of  the  hall  these  school-children  as  they  arrived 
in  groups,  one  after  the  other;  and  the  exercises  began  more 
than  an  hour  later  than  the  time  announced.  The  topic 
had  been  advertised  as  "The  Five  Conditions  of  National 
Prosperity" — these  being,  Industry,  Art,  Education,  Morals, 
and  Religion.  Partly  on  account  of  somewhat  heated  feeling, 
and  partly  on  account  of  cooler  judgment  as  to  what  are  the 
needs  of  the  hour  for  Korea,  I  spoke  with  audacious  plainness 
and  with  unaccustomed  energy.  Dr.  Jones,  who  was  acting 


LIFE  IN  SEOUL  53 

as  interpreter — moved,  I  think,  by  somewhat  the  same 
emotions — quite  surpassed  himself  in  vigor  and  in  clearness, 
in  a  fine  mingling  of  robustness  with  felicity  of  expression. 
The  foreign  auditors,  including  the  interpreter  himself,  were 
inclined  to  be  enthusiastic  over  the  success  of  the  meeting. 
For  myself,  there  intervened  a  considerable  period  of  distrust, 
both  of  the  Koreans  and  of  my  ability  to  judge  them  fairly. 
Of  one  thing,  however,  I  was  becoming  reasonably  sure: 
the  prophetic  voice,  exalting  righteousness  and  openly 
condemning  the  vices  of  cowardice,  lying,  injustice,  and 
cruel  prejudice  and  race-hatred,  is  needed  above  all  else  in 
speech  to  the  Koreans.  I  asked  myself,  and  was  unable  to 
answer:  Are  the  Christian  agencies  at  work  in  Korea 
furnishing  that  voice,  in  a  manner  and  measure  to  meet  the 
need? 

The  next  morning,  on  returning  from  a  walk  with  one  of 
the  foreign  secretaries  of  the  Young  Men's  Association,  we 
stood  for  some  time  upon  the  steps  of  Miss  Sontag's  house 
discussing  the  decision  of  the  day  before.  All  the  excuses 
for  the  Korean  attitude  toward  any  endeavors  to  help  them 
which  could,  even  in  the  remotest  way,  be  connected  with 
their  anti- Japanese  prejudices,  were  admitted;  they  were 
indeed  "natural"  (in  the  much-abused  meaning  of  the  word), 
but  they  were  neither  reasonable  nor  Christian.  Besides, 
they  were  rendered  particularly  unmanly  by  the  fact  that 
these  same  Koreans  were  ready  enough  to  profit,  individually 
and  collectively,  by  Japanese  money  and  influence;  and 
they  were  eager  and  crafty  to  use  the  religious  institutions 
afforded  them  by  Christian  money,  for  the  furthering  of 
heathenish  purposes  and  even  criminal  designs.  The  best 
thing  which  the  "  guest  of  Marquis  Ito"  could,  therefore,  do 
for  the  Koreans  themselves  was  to  let  them  know  how,  in  his 
judgment,  they  were  to  be  measured  by  the  standards  of 
morals  and  religion  which  they  had  professed  to  adopt.  On 


54  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

going  in  to  tiffin,  somewhat  late  from  this  discussion,  I  found 
by  my  plate  the  cards  of  five  Korean  gentlemen,  prominent 
in  Christian  circles,  who  had  called  in  my  absence.  The 
next  day  information  was  received  that  these  gentlemen  had 
come  to  thank  me  for  my  previous  work  in  their  country's 
behalf  and  to  suggest  their  wish  to  have  the  work  continued. 

As  a  consequence  of  this  implied  invitation,  one  more  pub- 
lic address  was  advertised  for  a  Korean  audience  in  Seoul. 
It  was  to  be  in  the  Association  Hall,  and  its  topic — "The 
Seven  Cardinal  Virtues."  On  the  evening  of  Friday,  May 
3d,  some  four  hundred  were  present,  including  the  Roman 
Catholic  Archbishop,  whose  acquaintance  I  had  made  only 
two  days  before.  Either  because  of  the  hot  weather,  or  of 
the  character  of  the  address,  or  of  the  audience,  the  interest 
seemed  less  than  at  any  of  the  previous  lectures.  The  time 
to  terminate  the  series  of  talks  on  topics  so  little  stimulating 
and  satisfying  to  the  desire  for  "look-see,"  and  for  emotional 
excitement,  had  plainly  arrived.  Probably,  eight  addresses 
on  such  serious  topics,  with  an  attendance  averaging  perhaps 
500  to  600  each,  ought  at  the  present  time  in  Korea  to  be 
gratifying  to  any  speaker.  However  this  may  be,  the  address 
of  May  3d  was  the  last  of  my  experiences  with  Korean  audi- 
ences in  Seoul. 

Meantime,  however,  other  invitations  to  speak  in  the  cap- 
ital city  of  Korea  had  been  received  and  were  waiting  for 
their  turn.  Soon  after  our  arrival,  one  of  the  Japanese 
pastors  called  to  say  that  it  had  been  arranged  for  me,  by  one 
of  the  teachers,  to  address  the  patronesses  of  a  school  for 
Korean  girls  bearing  the  name,  and  profiting  by  the  favors, 
of  Lady  Om.  Although  other  plans  had  previously  been 
made,  in  order  to  save  her  reputation  with  the  "leading 
lady"  of  Korea,  a  rebuke  was  sent  to  this  teacher  for  en- 
gaging her  speaker  without  first  consulting  him;  but  the 
invitation  was  accepted.  [In  justice  to  the  Koreans,  it 


LIFE  IN   SEOUL  55 

should  be  said  that  the  person  guilty  of  this  indiscretion  was 
a  Japanese.  Indeed,  to  pledge  the  speaker,  and  even  to 
select  his  time  and  topic  for  him,  is  a  sort  of  morally  doubtful 
enterprise,  out  of  which  even  the  New  Japan  has  not  as  yet 
wholly  emerged].  The  talk  at  Lady  Om's  School  was  in  no 
respect  a  success.  Although  both  substance  and  style  were 
made  as  simple  as  possible,  the  Korean  girl  who  had  studied 
abroad  and  was,  therefore,  thought  competent  to  interpret, 
completely  failed  in  this  office.  And  when  the  Japanese 
pastor,  who  had  mediated  the  invitation,  followed  with  an 
address  in  his  native  language  which  was  to  convey  the  sub- 
stance of  the  same  thought  to  the  Japanese  teachers  and 
patronesses  of  the  school,  he  delivered  so  prolonged  and 
brilliant  an  oration  that  the  speaker  whose  few  simple  words 
served  as  a  text  for  it  all,  was  obliged  to  commit  a  breach  of 
etiquette  by  leaving  before  the  customary  sequence  of  cakes. 

In  addressing  Japanese  audiences  in  Seoul,  as  elsewhere 
in  Korea  and  all  over  Japan,  I  felt  entirely  at  home.  It  was 
characteristic  of  them  in  this  foreign  land,  as  it  was  in  the 
home  country  at  the  same  time,  that  they  were,  above  all, 
desirous  to  hear  the  subjects  discussed  about  which  I  most 
desired  to  speak.  The  day  when  the  nation  had  expected  a  full 
salvation  from  "science  "  and  military  prowess,  without  morals, 
has  happily  gone  by.  Its  leaders,  whether  in  educational 
circles  or  in  the  army  and  navy,  in  civil  service,  and  largely, 
too,  in  business,  are  becoming  convinced  that  the  "spirit" 
of  Japan  must  be  revived,  retained,  made  more  comprehen- 
sive, purified,  elevated.;  if  the  triumphs  of  war  are  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  ,the  wished-for  successes  in  the  ensuing  peace. 
Thus  in  Korea,  as  everywhere  from  Nagasaki  to  Sapporo,  in 
primary  schools,  commercial  schools,  and  in  the  university,  I 
found  the  interest  of  the  Japanese  in  ethical  subjects  supreme. 

When,  then,  an  invitation  was  received  to  be  present  at  a 
banquet  given  by  the  "Economics  Club,"  of  which  Mr. 


56  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Ichihara  (manager  of  the  Dai-Ichi  Ginko  or  branches  of  the 
First  Bank  of  Japan  in  Seoul)  is  president,  and  to  speak  there, 
I  was  glad  of  the  opportunity — not  only  to  meet  friends, 
but  also  to  express  certain  cherished  thoughts  on  the  relations 
of  ethics  and  economics.  The  Marquis  Ito  was  present  at 
this  meeting  of  the  club  for  the  first  time.  In  a  lengthy 
address,  spoken  with  his  usual  careful  "  picking  of  words," 
the  Marquis  emphasized  the  need  that  the  Japanese  should 
set  before  the  Koreans  an  example  of  honesty  and  fairness 
in  their  economic  relations.  He  dwelt  upon  the  thought  that 
the  one  hundred  and  seventy  who  were  present,  and  who 
represented  the  principal  Japanese  business  interests  in 
Korea,  should  show  how  the  Japanese  national  policy  is 
based  upon  the  principle  of  unselfishness;  and  how  Japan  has 
declared  for,  and  means  to  stand  for,  "the  open  door."  In 
welcoming  me  he  repeated,  on  this  public  occasion,  what  he 
had  said  in  the  privacy  of  the  interview  at  Kyoto,  with  the 
following  words:  "Taking  advantage  of  his  visit  to  Japan, 
I  have  invited  Professor  Ladd,  whom  I  have  the  honor  and 
the  pleasure  of  considering  as  a  friend  of  several  years  stand- 
ing, to  come  over  here  and  favor  me  with  his  frank  and  inde- 
pendent views  on  the  situation.  What  I  want  is  independent 
views.  I  trust  he  knows  this  very  well.  I  trust  his  observa- 
tions will  be  of  great  help  to  me." 

In  replying  to  the  address  of  His  Excellency,  after  apologiz- 
ing to  President  Ichihara  for  criticising  the  school  of  econ- 
omics in  which  he  had  been  trained  (Mr.  Ichihara  studied 
this  subject  in  the  United  States),  for  failure  to  emphasize 
the  important  and  unalterable  relations  which  exist  between 
moral  principles  and  economical  policy,  I  expressed  my 
gratification  at  the  triumph  of  the  newer  school  which  builds 
on  history,  psychology,  and  ethics.  I  then  spoke  of  the  im- 
portance of  regarding  moral  principles  as  fundamental  in  all 
practical  ways,  for  the  most  successful  handling  of  the 


LIFE  IN  SEOUL  57 

delicate  political  and  economical,  as  well  as  social  interests, 
of  both  Japan  and  Korea.  The  observations  of  both  speak- 
ers to  the  same  effect  were  seriously  listened  to  and  heartily 
commended  by  this  influential  group  of  Japanese  financiers 
in  Korea.  Between  these  gentlemen  and  the  unscrupulous 
and  mischievous  rabble  of  their  countrymen,  who  poured 
into  Korea  at  the  close  of  the  war  with  Russia,  a  grave  dis- 
tinction must  constantly  be  made  by  those  who  would  under- 
stand the  situation  there. 

The  Japanese  ladies  in  Seoul  have  formed  themselves  into 
several  flourishing '  societies,  the  most  important  of  which, 
perhaps,  is  the  "  Ladies'  Patriotic  Association."  This  Asso- 
ciation is  not  only  useful  as  an  organ  for  benevolent  work 
among  the  widows  and  orphans  of  the  Japanese  soldiers, 
and  among  the  soldiers  now  on  service  in  Korea,  but  it  has 
already  done  much  to  break  down  the  barriers  which  ex- 
clude Korean  women  of  the  upper  classes  from  similar 
offices,  as  well  as  those  which  separate  the  women  of  the  two 
nationalities.  It  is,  therefore,  admirably  adapted  to  further 
indirectly  the  purposes'  of  the  Resident- General  in  main- 
taining the  honor  and  welfare  of  Japan  by  promoting  the 
good  of  Korea.  On  Wednesday  of  the  week  following  the 
address  before  the  Economics  Club,  I  spoke  to  some  sixty 
Japanese  ladies,  and  about  the  same  number  of  gentlemen, 
under  the  auspices  of  this  Association.  The  theme  was  the 
importance  and  value  of  relations  of  friendship  between  the 
two  countries,  as  an  appeal  to  the  patriotism  of  those  who 
must  be  relied  upon  to  bring  about  these  relations.  A  few 
Korean  ladies  also  were  present  at  this  gathering.  And 
when,  at  a  collation  which  followed  in  the  Japanese  Club- 
House  of  Seoul,  Mrs.  Ladd  made  a  short  address  to  the 
ladies,  a  response  in  few  words  was  made  in  Japanese  by 
Mrs.  Megata,  the  wife  of  the  Financial  Adviser  to  the  Korean 
Government,  and  a  yet  longer  one,  in  the  same  language,  by 


58  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITU 

Mrs.  Yi  Chi-yung,  the  wife  of  the  then  acting  Korean  Minister 
for  Home  Affairs.  Such  incidents  as  these  may  seem  trivial, 
but  they  are  really  noteworthy  as  the  beginnings  of  what 
may  well  grow  into  a  satisfactory  practical  solution  of  the 
difficult  problem  of  establishing  a  Japanese  Protectorate  over 
Korea  in  a  way  to  secure  the  honor  and  welfare  of  both 
nations. 

The  remaining  two  addresses  to  Japanese  audiences  in 
Seoul  were  not  particularly  significant  as  bearing  upon  the 
interests  I  was  trying  to  serve.  They  were,  however,  sug- 
gestive as  to  certain  changes  going  on  in  Korea  which  are 
destined  to  assist  in  the  redemption  of  the  country.  These 
were  an  address  on  an  educational  topic  to  about  sixty  teach- 
ers who  met  in  the  fine,  large  brick  school-building  which 
marks  conspicuously  the  Japanese  ideal  in  this  matter;  and 
a  talk  on  the  relation  of  religion  to  social  reform,  given  in 
one  of  the  Japanese  churches  to  an  audience  of  a  union 
character,  representing  the  Christian  work  among  their  own 
countrymen  by  pastors  imported  from  Japan.  An  address 
at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Bible  Society,  an  address  at  a 
meeting  of  the  Asiatic  Society,  and  one  or  two  other  talks, 
completed  my  work  of  this  character,  so  far  as  the  city  of  Seoul 
was  concerned. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  more  important -work  in 
which  the  Japanese  Resident- General  in  Korea  hoped  I 
might  be  of  some  assistance  could  not  be  done  merely  by 
making  public  addresses,  however  well  received  by  the 
Koreans  themselves.  It  was  evident  that  his  plans  for  up- 
lifting by  pacific  measures  the  economical  and  educational 
condition  of  the  Korean  people  were  being  misunderstood 
and  hindered,  not  only  by  those  foreigners  who  had  selfish 
interests  to  promote,  but  also  by  some  who  ought  to  co- 
operate in  every  unselfish  way.  These  "  anti- Japanese " 
foreigners  were  of  several  nationalities  (so  far  as  the  diplo- 


LIFE  IN  SEOUL  59 

mats  and,  business  men  were  concerned) ;  but  the  mission- 
aries were,  for  the  most  part,  my  own  countrymen.  In  the 
complaint  of  Marquis  Ito,  there  was  never  at  any  time  the 
least  trace  of  bitterness,  although  the  fact  was  obvious  that 
he  felt  the  credit  of  his  nation,  as  well  as  of  his  own  adminis- 
tration, to  be  deeply  concerned.  But  surely,  if  both  Marquis 
Ito  and  the  missionaries  were  striving  to  promote  what  was 
best  for  the  cause  of  the  Korean  nation  and  of  humanity  in 
the  Far  East,  the  disclosure  of  this  fact  ought  to  make  more 
easy  the  adjustment  of  the  delicate  relations  involved  in  the 
different  kinds  and  methods  of  their  benevolent  work.  I 
knew  that  the  Marquis  desired  this  friendly  understanding 
and  cordial  co-operation.  I  thought  it  right  that  foreign 
missionaries  should  be  not  less  moved  than  was  the  Resident- 
General  by  the  same  desire.  Union  and  sympathy,  rather 
than  opposition  or  indifference,  ought  to  prevail  between  the 
industrial  and  educational  interests  and  the  more  definitively 
moral  and  religious. 

The  larger  aspects  of  the  missionary  problem  in  Korea  will 
be  briefly  treated  in  another  connection.  At  present  it  is 
enough  to  describe  the  conclusions  on  this  subject  at  which 
I  was  forced  to  arrive,  and  to  tell  something  of  my  personal 
experiences.  There  had,  doubtless,  been  much  provocation 
to  form  a  poor  opinion  of  the  character  and  intentions  of  the 
Japanese  populace  which  had  crowded  into  the  cities  of 
Seoul  and  Pyeng-yang  during  and  after  the  war  with  Russia. 
They  had  cheated  and  maltreated  the  Koreans  and  had 
brought  suspicion  and,  in  some  instances,  disgrace  upon  the 
fair  fame  of  Japan.  None  of  the  other  foreigners  were 
readier  to  make  accusation  of  this  than  were  the  reputable 
Japanese  to  confess  and  deplore  the  same  thing.  But  all  the 
robbery  and  oppression  by  these  unfriendly  foreigners  was 
as  nothing  compared  with  what  the  Koreans  had  suffered 
from  their  own  countrymen  through  hundreds  of  years. 


60  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Moreover,  at  this  very  time,  almost  without  exception,  a 
Korean  was  to  be  found  back  of,  or  associated  with,  a  Japan- 
ese in  each  scheme  for  swindling  and  in  each  act  of  injustice 
or  oppression. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  conduct  of  some  of  the  mission- 
aries had  not  been  altogether  judicious  or  even  fair  and  just. 
As  a  body  they  seemed  inclined  to  be  over-credulous  and  easy 
to  deceive  by  the  falsehoods  and  exaggerations  of  their  own 
converts.  Not  unnaturally,  but  it  would  seem  unwisely, 
they  had  been  somewhat  too  extravagant  in  praise  of  the 
negative  virtues  of  the  Koreans,  and  somewhat  too  sparing 
in  demanding  the  more  manly  moral  qualities  of  sincerity, 
courage,  veracity,  and  sturdy  loyalty  to  justice  and  to  truth. 
And — to  quote  expressions  heard  from  the  lips  of  some  of  the 
ladies — there  had  been  too  much  talk  with  foreigners  and 
before  the  natives,  about  the  "dear  Koreans";  and  "We 
do  not  love  the  Japanese."  That  certain  letters  home — in 
part  private  and  not  designed  for  publication  by  the  writer, 
and  in  part  written  by  missionaries  themselves  for  the  press, 
or  by  chance  visitors  or  newspaper  correspondents  to  make 
public  stories  told  to  them  by  the  missionaries — had  created 
strong  impressions  unfavorable  to  the  success  of  the  Japanese 
Protectorate,  was  not  a  matter  of  merely  private  information. 
Moreover,  the  connection,  both  implicit  and  obvious,  be- 
tween these  workers  in  the  moral  and  religious  interests  of 
Korea  and  the  enterprises  of  Mr.  Homer  B.  Hulbert  and  his 
colleagues  in  the  alleged  political  interests  of  the  Korean 
Court,  could  not  fail  to  be  interpreted  by  both  foreigners  and 
Koreans  as  hostile  to  the  policy  of  the  Japanese  Government. 
Even  as  late  as  August,  1907,  an  open  letter — than  which 
anything  more  insulting  or  abusive  of  the  Japanese  nation 
has  seldom  been  published — was  written  by  a  Church  of 
England  missionary. 

Dr.  Jones  and  I  had  talked  over  the  situation  and  the  policy 


LIFE  IN  SEOUL  61 

of  the  missionary  body,  as  touching  the  real  and  lasting 
advance  of  morals  and  religion  in  Korea,  many  times  before 
the  hour  when  the  point  of  turning  was  reached.  I  had 
found  him  always  frank,  fair,  and  sympathetic  with  the  diffi- 
cult and  complicated  interests  of  both  peoples.  He  had 
assured  me  that,  personally,  Marquis  Ito  was  steadily  gaining 
in  the  confidence  of  all  the  foreigners,  including  the  mission- 
aries, and  even  of  the  Koreans  themselves.  But  the  prejudice 
and  bitterness  of  feeling  toward  the  Japanese  generally  re- 
mained unchanged;  and  every  one  seemed  to  be  doubting 
whether  the  policy  of  the  Resident- General  could  win  its 
way.  I  had  steadily  maintained  the  position  that,  whatever 
might  have  been  true  in  the  past,  the  welfare  of  Korea  and  the 
success  of  missions  there,  depended  upon  a  positive  and 
hearty  co-operation  of  all  the  factors  common  to  both  forms 
of  good  influence.  I  had  previously  told  Marquis  Ito  that, 
in  my  judgment,  the  Christian  movement  now  in  progress 
would  be  the  most  important  help  toward  the  success  of  his 
policy  in  uplifting  the  Korean  people.  His  Excellency,  I 
had  said  to  Dr.  Jones,  had  held  out  the  hand  to  the  mission- 
aries; for  them,  through  fear  of  losing  influence  among  the 
Koreans,  or  especially  at  the  Korean  Court,  to  refuse  to  take 
this  hand,  seemed  to  me  not  only  unwise  but  in  a  measure  un- 
Christian.  Without  the  success  of  the  powerful  influence 
wielded  by  the  Resident-General  for  the  economical  and  educa- 
tional improvement  of  Korea — for  developing  its  industries, 
founding  schools  and  hospitals,  making  the  conditions  of  life 
more  comfortable  and  sanitary,  purging  the  corrupt  court,  and 
securing  law,  order,  and  the  administration  of  justice  in  the 
country  magistracies — preaching,  Bible-teaching,  and  colpor- 
teurage,  must  remain  forever  relatively  unavailing.  Moreover, 
I  was  becoming  convinced  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  pres- 
ent interest  of  the  Koreans  in  the  missionary  movement  had, 
either  in  pure  or  mixed  form,  political  motives  behind  it. 


62  IN  KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS  ITO 

It  was  on  Thursday,  May  2d,  that  the  Korean  Daily 
News — the  paper  whose  most  obvious  purpose  seemed  to  be, 
in  its  English  edition,  to  foster  prejudice  against  the  Japanese 
and  to  obstruct  the  policy  of  the  Resident- General,  and  in  its 
native  edition  to  mislead  the  Koreans  and  excite  them  to 
sedition — published  the  following  "telegrams  about  Korea 
from  American  papers"  as  likely  to  " prove  of  local  interest" 
(sic).  [It  should  be  remembered  that  this  date  was  only 
some  ten  days  after  the  assassination  of  the  Minister  of  the 
Household  Department,  Mr.  Pak  Yong-wha,  and  somewhat 
more  than  a  month  after  the  attempted  assassination  of  the 
Minister  of  War.]  "American  missionaries  writing  from 
Korea  recently  tell  of  a  most  intolerable  state  of  affairs  in  that 
country  where  the  Japanese  have  been  acting  in  such  a  high- 
handed manner  as  to  cause  even  the  humble  native  to  revolt. 
The  Emperor  is  held  a  prisoner  and  appears  to  be  in  daily 
terror  of  his  life.  Nor  have  the  aggressions  of  the  Japanese 
been  confined  to  the  natives  of  Korea.  Americans,  engaged 
chiefly  in  mining  enterprises,  had  it  plainly  demonstrated  that 
Korea  is  no  place  for  them  and  that  they  would  better  move 
out.  A  representative  of  these  mining  interests"  (the  true 
story  of  this  'mining  representative'  will  be  told  elsewhere) 
"is  now  either  at  or  on  his  way  to  Washington  to  see  if  they 
cannot  obtain  redress  from  their  government.  This  latest 
development  in  the  Korean  situation,  the  boycot,  will  doubt- 
less precipitate  matters  in  Korea." 

These  "telegrams,"  published  May  2d  in  Seoul,  bore  date 
of  San  Francisco,  April  ist.  It  so  happened  that  Dr.  Jones 
came  to  my  office  on  the  early  morning  of  the  date  of  this 
publication.  Finding  that  he  had  not  read  the  article  in  the 
Korean  Daily  News,  I  called  his  attention  to  it ;  and  I  then 
spoke  more  plainly  about  the  urgent  necessity  of  a  change  of 
attitude  on  the  part  of  the  missionaries  than  I  had  ever 
spoken  before.  It  was  apparent,  I  urged,  that  the  negative, 


LIFE  IN  SEOUL  63 

non-committal  position  would  no  longer  suffice.  Instead  of 
its  being  justifiable  under  the  plea  of  not  engaging  in  politics, 
the  very  reverse  was  true.  The  missionaries  in  Korea,  either 
unwittingly  or  half-willingly,  were  being  used,  both  in  Korea 
and  in  the  United  States,  to  foster  anti- Japanese  feeling  as 
supported  by  exaggerations,  falsehoods,  and  only  half-truths. 
They  were  thus,  I  feared,  helping  to  encourage  the  very  worst 
and  most  dangerous  elements  in  both  countries.  There  was 
real  danger  that,  if  this  course  was  persisted  in,  the  peaceful 
policy  of  Marquis  Ito,  with  its  patient  and  generous  effort  to 
promote  the  development  of  the  Korean  people,  might  be 
discouraged.  And  if  the  mailed  fist  were  invited,  or  seemed 
necessary,  to  maintain  the  reasonable  and  unalterable  inten- 
tion of  Japan  never  again  to  leave  Korea  to  be  a  prey  to 
foreign  intrigues  against  herself  and  to  the  degradation  of 
its  own  corrupt  government,  the  cause  of  Christian  mis- 
sions in  Korea  surely  would  not  fare  better  than  it  easily 
could  by  establishing  friendly  relations  of  co-operation  with 
the  existing  Protectorate.  The  events  of  October,  1895, 
and  of  the  following  years,  ought  not  to  be  so  easily 
forgotten. 

Two  days  later  the  following,  under  the  heading  of  "  Mar- 
quis Ito  and  Christian  Missionaries,"  appeared  in  the  Seoul 
Press.  "His  Excellency  Marquis  Ito  received  Dr.  George 
Heber  Jones  and  Dr.  W.  B.  Scranton  on  Thursday  afternoon. 
The  work  of  the  churches  in  Korea  was  discussed  and  the 
visitors  assured  His  Excellency  that  the  reports,  reproduced 
from  American  papers,  claiming  that  the  Christian  mission- 
aries were  antagonistic  to  the  Resident-General  and  his 
policy  in  Korea,  neither  represented  their  personal  sentiments 
nor  those  of  their  colleagues;  that  His  Excellency  might  feel 
assured  of  their  sincere  sympathy  and  co-operation  in  all 
measures  looking  toward  the  betterment  of  the  Korean  people. 
The  missionaries  make  it  a  rule  to  stand  aloof  from  political 


64  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

matters,  finding  in  the  moral  and  spiritual  uplift  of  the 
Korean  people  full  scope  for  activity." 

"His  Excellency  assured  the  visitors  that  he  gave  no 
credence  to  the  reports  thus  circulated,  and  that  he  entertained 
no  suspicion  nor  doubt  of  the  missionaries  in  Korea.  He 
.fully  recognized  the  value  of  the  work  they  were  doing  for 
the  moral  and  spiritual  betterment  of  the  Koreans,  and  wished 
them  every  success." 

This  public  announcement  of  the  establishment  of  friendly 
relations  between  the  Marquis  Ito  and  an  influential  portion 
of  the  missionary  body  in  Korea  was  drawn  up  in  semi- 
official fashion.  The  gentlemen  wrho  undertook  the  duty  of 
making  the  advances  toward  the  Resident- General  were 
convicted — as  is  every  one  who  comes  into  anything  ap- 
proaching familiar  relations  with  him — of  the  complete 
sincerity  of  his  purpose  toward  the  people  of  Korea,  and  of 
his  frank  and  fair-minded  policy  toward  all  foreign  interests. 
The  Marquis  himself,  after  the  interview,  requested  that  the 
substance  of  it  might  be  made  known  to  the  public.  Each 
party  prepared  with  care  the  few  words  which  declared  this 
unselfish  alliance  between  the  representative  of  His  Imperial 
Majesty,  the  Emperor  of  Japan,  in  Korea  and  these  represen- 
tative teachers  of  religion,  in  the  common  effort  to  promote 
the  industrial,  educational,  moral,  and  religious  welfare  of  a 
hitherto  unhappy  nation.  Such  an  alliance — as  we  may 
reasonably  hope — will  contribute  to  the  reputation  for 
wisdom  and  unselfishness  of  both  parties  to  it.  At  any  rate, 
as  soon  appeared,  the  immediate  results  were  in  the  direction 
of  an  enlarged  future  good. 


CHAPTER  IV 

LIFE    IN    SEOUL    (CONTINUED) 

THE  winter  and  spring  of  1907  in  Korea  were,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  one  interested  in  this  kind  of  politics,  a  very  lively 
period,  even  for  a  country  traditionally  accustomed  to  similar 
performances.  Four  attempts  at  assassination  of  the  Ministry 
— one  of  which  was  successful;  daily  disclosures  of  intrigue, 
plot  and  counter-plot;  revolts  against  the  country  magistrates 
which  took  the  form  of  refusal  to  pay  taxes,  of  attacks  upon 
the  police,  and  of  highway  robbery;  plans  for  plundering  the 
resources  of  the  nation  under  plausible  pretence  of  schemes 
for  "promoting"  the  nation's  resources;  foolish  excitements 
selfishly  fostered  by  writers  for  the  press  who  had  their  own 
interests  to  secure;  and  quite  as  foolish,  but  less  selfish,  en- 
deavors for  increase  of  public  welfare,  by  those  benevolently 
inclined;  secret  arrangements  for  the  despatch  of  the  un- 
fortunate delegation  to  the  Hague,  accompanied  by  stealings 
from  the  impoverished  royal  treasury  to  the  extent  of  several 
hundred  thousand  yen;  and,  finally,  a  change,  not  only  in 
the  personnel  of  the  Ministry  but  in  its  very  constitution  and 
mode  of  procedure,  which  amounted  to  a  bloodless  revolution 
— these  and  other  like  events  were  crowded  into  this  one 
half-year.  Meantime,  especially  after  the  return  of  the 
Resident-General,  the  foundations  of  a  new  industrial  and 
educational  development  were  being  laid;  and  the  arrange- 
ments for  a  systematic  administration  of  law  and  justice  were 
quietly  made  ready.  An  extensive  religious  revival  was  in 

65 


66  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

progress — with  phenomena  corresponding  to  those  familiar  to 
students  of  such  subjects,  when  the  moral  power  of  a  higher 
religion  first  makes  itself  felt  among  a  people  who  are  ignorant 
devil-  and  spirit-  worshippers  and  are  habitually  negligent  or 
corrupt  in  respect  of  the  manliest  virtues.  All  this  ferment 
was  both  caused,  ajid  pervaded  in  its  characteristics,  by  the 
Korean  national  hatred  of  the  race  that  was  destined  to 
subdue  and,  as  we  hope,  redeem  them. 

During  Marquis  Ito's  absence  in  Japan  those  opposed  to 
the  workings  of  the  recently  established  Japanese  Protectorate 
over  Korea  were  indeed  busily  engaged.  Their  various  enter- 
prises took  the  several  forms  mentioned  above.  As  to  assas- 
sination, one  unsuccessful  attempt  had  been  made  some  time 
before  the  Marquis'  return  to  Korea.  A  beautiful  box  of 
nickel  was  sent  as  a  present  to  acting  Prime  Minister  Pak. 
No  one  of  the  Korean  Court,  being  wise  in  their  generation, 
ventured  to  examine  its  contents  or  even  to  raise  the  lid  of  the 
box.  Subsequently  the  Resident-General  examined  it  himself. 
It  proved  to  be  an  ingenious  contrivance  by  which  the  turning 
of  the  key  and  lifting  the  lid  would  pull  the  trigger  of  a  pistol 
and  explode  the  powder  with  which  the  box  was  filled.  Both 
box  and  pistol  were  of  American  manufacture.  The  inten- 
tion of  the  pretended  present,  which  it  was  doubtless  hoped 
would  be  the  more  eagerly  accepted  and  naively  dealt  with, 
since  it  ostensibly  came  from  so  "friendly"  a  country,  needs 
no  investigation.  The  precise  source  of  the  murderous  gift 
will  perhaps  never  be  accurately  known. 

The  day  but  one  before  our  arrival  in  Seoul  another  un- 
successful attempt  at  political  murder  was  made — this  time 
in  daylight  and  upon  one  of  the  principal  thoroughfares. 
The  object  of  attack  was  Mr.  Kwon,  the  Minister  of  War, 
who  was  riding  in  a  jinrikisha  surrounded  by  his  official 
guard.  The  following  account  is  taken  from  the  Seoul  Press 
of  Friday,  March  29th: 


LIFE  IN  SEOUL  67 

The  Korean  Minister  of  War  had  a  narrow  escape  on  Monday 
from  a  daring  attempt  on  his  life.  The  would-be  assassins — 
there  were  two  or  probably  more— succeeded. in  getting  away  from 
the  Japanese  policeman  in  the  Korean  service,  who  seems  to  have 
had  a  most  desperate  struggle  with  them  and  some  people  who 
came  to  their  assistance  (that  is,  the  assistance  of  the  assassins). 
He,  however,  succeeded  in  taking  the  pistol,  which  had  been 
fired  twice  upon  the  Minister,  happily  without  any  effect.  One 
of  the  accomplices  was  shortly  after  arrested  by  another  Japanese 
policeman  in  the  Korean  service  in  the  vicinity  of  the  Minister's 
residence.  According  to  a  statement  made  by  this  prisoner,  he 
belongs  to  a  band  of  eighteen  men  from  South  Korea,  who  are 
alleged  to  have  recently  entered  Seoul  for  the  purpose  cf  assassinat- 
ing the  Cabinet  Ministers.  These  men  are  further  alleged  to  be 
the  remnants  of  the  so-called  " volunteer"  insurgents  of  last  year. 
There  seems,  however,  reason  to  suspect  the  truth  of  this  state- 
ment; it  is  not  unlikely  that  motives  of  a  political  character  have 
been  adduced  to  cover  a  crime  prompted  by  personal  enmity  or 
rivalry.  Such  things  have  constantly  occurred  in  this  country  in 
recent  years.  Rumors  are  rife  as  to  the  true  origination  of  the 
dastardly  attempt  on  Mr.  Kwon's  life,  but  we  do  not  consider  it 
necessary  to  take  any  notice  of  them  they  are  mostly  of  such  an 
extraordinary  character  that  they  will  certainly  be  dismissed  as 
utterly  inconceivable  by  anybody  not  accustomed  to  the  peculiar 
ways  of  politics  in  Seoul. 

One  remark  should  be  added  to  complete  this  public 
account;  and  one  other  to  enable  the  observer  to  read  be- 
tween the  lines.  There  were  Korean  body-guards  and 
policemen  and  citizens  at  hand;  but  only  one  Japanese 
policeman  made  any  attempt  to  save  the  Minister's  life  or  to 
arrest  the  assassins.  The  rumors  rife,  so  inconceivable  to 
"anybody  not  accustomed"  to  the  "politics"  of  Seoul, 
suggested,  as  usual,  that  it  would  be  well  not  to  examine  too 
closely  into  the  plot,  lest  some  one  might  be  uncovered  who 
stood  "higher  up"  in  the  court  circles  of  Korea. 


68  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

The  third  attempt  at  assassination  was  limited  to  the  dis- 
covery and  immediate  flight  of  the  intruder  as  he  was  trying 
to  climb  the  wall  of  the  enclosure  of  acting  Prime  Minister 
Pak.  But  the  fourth  attempt  did  not  terminate  so  harm- 
lessly. In  brief,  the  history  of  this  political  murder  was  as 
follows  (its  date  was  April  2ist): 

On  Sunday  evening,  Mr.  Pak  Yong-hwa,  Director  of  the  Audit 
Bureau  of  the  Imperial  Household  Department,  was  assassinated 
at  his  house.  On  that  evening  Mr.  Pak  had  nearly  a  dozen  visit- 
ors, and  while  he  was  conversing  with  them  shortly  after  ten 
o'clock,  the  card  of  another  visitor,  not  known  to  him,  was  brought 
in.  Mr.  Pak  saw  the  man  in  a  separate  room,  and  no  sooner  had 
he  begun  to  talk  with  him  than  another  man  rushed  into  the  room 
through  a  window  and  stabbed  Mr.  Pak  in  the  right  breast,  in- 
flicting a  wound  four  inches  deep.  Seeing  their  victim  drop 
mortally  wounded,  the  assassins  hurriedly  left,  discharging  a  few 
shots  from  their  revolvers  to  prevent  pursuit.  They  are  said  to 
have  been  attired  in  foreign  dress,  and  from  their  accent  it  is  in- 
ferred that  they  are  most  probably  from  Keng-Sang-do. 

The  unfortunate  Minister  died  from  his  wound  while  in 
the  palanquin  on  the  way  to  the  Japanese  hospital.  Marquis 
Ito,  supposing  from  the  news  received  by  telephone  that  act- 
ing Prime  Minister  Pak  was  the  victim,  started  at  once  for 
the  hospital;  but  learning,  before  reaching  there,  of  the  real 
name  of  the  victim,  and  of  his  death,  he  returned  to  the 
Residency.  The  next  day  H.  M.  the  Emperor  caused  a 
chamberlain  to  pay  a  visit  of  condolence  to  Mr.  Pak's  resi- 
dence: but  the  city  of  Seoul  and  the  country  of  Korea  went 
about  its  business  of  intrigue  or  its  work  of  tilling  the  fields, 
as  though  nothing  unusual  had  happened.  The  distinction 
between  such  events  here  and  in  Russia  should  be  borne  in 
mind  by  one  trying  to  estimate  their  significance.  In  Korea 
there  is  no  immediate  tangible  interest,  affecting  life,  liberty, 
or  property,  for  the  individual,  at  stake,  to  justify  violence. 


LIFE  IN   SEOUL  69 

Where  the  real  reasons  are  not  thoroughly  selfish  and  cor- 
rupt— as  indeed  in  most  cases  they  are — a  misguided  patriot- 
ism, with  a  large  mixture  of  hypocritical  sentimentality,  is 
the  motive  for  the  political  murders  of  Korea.  The  real 
patriots,  if  their  feeling  is  intense  enough  and  their  courage 
sufficient,  commit  suicide;  and  those  of  less  degree  of  inten- 
sity refuse  to  accept  office  under  a  foreign  protectorate! 

In  general,  it  had  hitherto  been  only  the  court  officials  them- 
selves who  much  cared  as  to  what  persons  were  selected  by 
the  Emperor  for  the  different  high  offices  in  Seoul  itself. 
They,  too,  had  been  chiefly  interested  in  the  more  serious 
question  as  to  who  it  is  of  these  officials  that  gets  himself 
assassinated.  The  peasants  and  pedlers,  who  are  the  travel- 
ling merchants  in  the  country  districts,  care  only  about  the 
local  magistrates  and  about  the  bearable  amount  of  their 
"squeezes."  But  under  the  administration  of  Marquis  Ito 
assassination  of  officers  whose  character  and  official  acts 
sustain  such  important  relations  to  the  vital  interests  of  both 
Japan  and  Korea,  cannot  now  be  allowed  its  traditional 
impunity.  Investigation  into  the  authors  and  promoters  of 
this  plot,  therefore,  quietly  began  and  was  carried  as  far 
upward  as  seemed  desirable  or  necessary.  According  to  the 
Korean  Daily  News,  the  three  Koreans — La  In-yung,  Aw 
Ki-ho,  and  Kim  In-sik — who  on  April  ist  "went  to  the 
Supreme  Court  in  Seoul  and  gave  themselves  up,  stating 
that  they  were  the  ones  who  had  tried  to  kill  the  Minister 
of  War,"  "seem  to  have  been  actuated  by  no  selfish  im- 
pulses." The  same  paper  calls  attention  to  the  claim  that 
the  plan  was  to  kill  all  the  five  Cabinet  Ministers  "who 
signed  the  last  treaty  with  Japan";  and  also  to  the  fact  that 
these  same  men  had  been  to  Japan  to  memorialize  the  Japan- 
ese Emperor  with  reference  to  the  condition  of  Korea  under 
the  protectorate  of  the  empire  whose  head  was  His  Majesty 
himself.  This  is  as  far  as  the  paper  cared  to  go  at  this  time 


70  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

in  apologizing  for  the  attempt  at  wholesale  murder;  but 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  attempt  itself  was  not  at  all  dis- 
pleasing to  the  court  officials  of  the  other  party  than  the  one 
in  power  or  to  the  people  generally. 

The  truer  story  is  as  follows :  The  searchings  of  the  police 
after  those  who  attempted  the  assassination  of  the  Minister  of 
War  resulted  in  picking  up  a  number  of  them  from  various 
quarters.  These  rascals  were  cross-questioned  and  one  of 
them  confessed  and  implicated  as  back  of  the  plot  financially, 
no  less  important  a  personage  than  the  ex-Minister  of  the 
Imperial  Household,  Yi  Yong-tai.  This  is  the  man  who 
was  once  prevented  by  foreign  influence,  on  account  of  his 
thoroughly  evil  reputation,  from  going  to  Washington  as 
Minister  from  Korea.  He  is  known  as  a  past-master  in  all 
kinds  of  craft  and  corruption,  thoroughly  untrustworthy; 
although  he  had  formerly  been  elevated  by  the  Emperor  to 
the  position  of  Minister  of  the  Interior.  Now,  it  so  happened 
that  at  the  very  time  of  the  examination  of  the  assassins, 
this  same  gentleman  was  in  an  adjoining  room  where  he  and 
those  with  him  could  easily  hear  everything  said  in  answer 
to  the  cross-questioning.  It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  Mr. 
Yi  Yong-tai  confessed  that  he  himself  was  indeed  one  of  the 
band  of  patriots  who  had  attempted  the  gallant  measure  of 
paying  hired  assassins  to  make  way  with  their  political  rivals 
— as  I  have  already  said,  a  recognized,  legitimate  political 
measure  throughout  Korean  history. 

The  progress  and  result  of  the  investigations  into  this  plot 
of  assassination  are  so  significant  that  this  summary  account 
from  the  Seoul  Press  is  well  worthy  of  reflective  considera- 
tion: 

The  authors  of  the  late  unsuccessful  attempt  on  the  life  of  Mr. 
Kwon,  the  War  Minister,  have  at  last  been  established.  The  plot 
is  of  much  greater  magnitude  than  originally  supposed,  and  more 
than  thirty  men  are  now  under  arrest.  The  leaders  of  the  con- 


LIFE   IN   SEOUL  71 

spiracy  are  two  South  Chul-la-do  men,  La  In-yung  and  Aw  Ki-ho 
by  name.  It  is  stated  that  they  are  men  of  learning  and  command 
some  respect  among  their  neighbors.  Some  days  ago  they  sur- 
rendered themselves  to  the  Supreme  Court  and  confessed  all  that 
had  happened.  From  their  own  statements  it  appears  that  the 
events  which  led  them  to  the  dastardly  attempt  are  rather  his- 
torical than  temporary.  Since  the  days  of  the  Japan-China  war 
they  have  been  imbued  with  the  idea  that  the  peace  of  Korea 
could  be  preserved  only  through  the  separate  independence  of 
Japan,  China,  and  Korea.  Guided  by  this  idea  they  did  all 
things  in  their  power  to  prevent  Russia  from  gaining  ascendancy  in 
this  country  after  that  war;  and  on  the  outbreak  of  the  Russo- 
Japanese  war  they  prayed,  so  they  say,  for  the  victory  of  Japan, 
as  her  Imperial  declaration  of  war  made  reference  to  the  main- 
tenance of  the  territorial  integrity  of  the  peninsula.  In  June, 
1905,  the  two  men,  with  one  Yi,  a  school  teacher,  went  over  to 
Tokyo  and  made  representations  to  the  Household  Department 
and  Cabinet  Ministers,  petitioning  for  Korea's  independence. 
On  learning  from  the  Japanese  press  that  the  conclusion  of  a 
treaty  was  on  the  tapis  between  Japan  and  Korea,  which  would 
transfer  the  conduct  of  Korean  foreign  affairs  into  the  hands  of 
the  former,  they  immediately  wired  to  Mr.  Pak,  the  Premier, 
requesting  him  not  to  sign  the  Convention,  even  if  his  life  were 
threatened.  The  Convention,  however,  soon  became  an  accom- 
plished fact  in  November,  1905,  and  the  three  left  Tokyo  fqr 
home  in  the  next  month.  But  they  soon  found  it  impossible  to 
enjoy  tranquillity  at  home.  Japan  began  steadily  to  perform  that 
which  the  Convention  of  November,  1905,  provided  for,  and  they 
again  crossed  to  Japan,  in  April,  1906.  They  vainly  attempted 
to  persuade  some  Japanese  politicians  to  start  a  movement  for 
the  realization  of  their  cherished  ideal.  Discouraged  by  another 
failure,  they  once  more  returned  to  Seoul,  and  on  the  initiative 
of  La  In-yung,  they  came  to  the  terrible  decision  that  the  Premier 
and  four  Ministers  of  State,  who  were  responsible  for  the  conclu- 
sion of  the  Convention,  should  be  assassinated  in  order  to  admit 
of  the  present  Government  being  replaced  by  a  new  administra- 
tion, composed  of  men  of  greater  ability  and  capable  of  forcing 


72  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Japan  to  restore  to  Korea  the  conduct  of  her  own  affairs.  They 
were  thus  awaiting  the  advent  of  a  good  opportunity. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  survivor  of  the  Chi  Ik-hyun  rebellion, 
named  Pak  Tai-ha,  with  Kim  Tong-pil,  arrested  on  Tuesday, 
and  a  few  others  discontented  with  the  present  regime,  were  con- 
spiring here  to  raise  another  rebellion;  and  La  and  Aw,  happen- 
ing to  come  in  contact  with  these  men,  a  special  friendship  was 
soon  contracted  between  them.  Pak  and  his  associates  were 
prevailed  upon  by  La  and  Aw  to  abandon  their  own  plan  and 
join  the  plot  against  the  Government  in  power.  Here  stepped  in 
another  person,  by  name  Kim  In-sik,  hailing  from  North  Chul- 
la-do.  Having  many  acquaintances  among  the  officials  of  the 
Government,  especially  among  those  now  out  of  power,  Kim  was 
asked  to  raise  a  fund  necessary  for  the  achievement  of  their  com- 
mon cause;  and  he  succeeded  in  drawing  a  sufficient  sum  from 
the  discontents.  Yi  Yong-tai,  ex-Minister  of  the  Imperial  House- 
hold, now  under  arrest,  headed  the  subscription  list  by  contribut- 
ing 1,700  yen,  and  this  was  followed  by  1,200  yen  by  Min  Hyung- 
sik,  Vice-Minister  of  Education,  who  was  arrested  on  Thursday 
night,  through  the  medium  of  Chi  Ik-chin,  Chief  of  the  Accounts 
Section  of  the  Imperial  Guards  Bureau  in  the  Household  Depart- 
ment, who,  in  turn,  was  also  arrested  on  Thursday  night.  A  few 
minor  contributions  were  made  by  ex-officials,  making  a  total  of 
3,400  yen. 

The  date  originally  fixed  for  the  assassination  of  the  five  Min- 
isters was  the  ist  of  the  first  moon,  when  all  the  high  dignitaries 
proceed  to  the  Palace  to  offer  their  congratulations  to  the  Em- 
peror. They  hired  a  number  of  men  in  Chul-la-do  and  Kyong- 
sang-do  for  the  purpose;  but  the  plan  miscarried  owing  to  the 
belated  arrival  of  these  men.  The  25th  of  May  was  then  chosen. 
Some  fifty  men  came  up  to  town  in  time  from  the  above  two  prov- 
inces, and  five  bands,  each  under  the  command  of  a  leader,  were 
posted  along  the  roads  leading  to  the  Palace  from  the  respective 
residences  of  the  Premier,  Ministers  of  the  Interior,  War,  Educa- 
tion and  Justice,  and  Mr.  Yi  Kun-tak.  The  company  com- 
manded by  Aw  Ki-ho,  which  was  to  do  away  with  Mr.  Pak,  failed 
through  the  hesitation  of  the  hired  men;  but  Yi  Hong-tai's  com- 


LIFE   IN   SEOUL  73 

pany,  charged  with  the  killing  of  the  War  Minister,  had  courage 
enough  to  make  an  attempt.  Their  efforts,  however,  proved 
abortive,  and  led  to  the  detection  of  the  plot. 

An  analysis  of  this  group  of  Korean  officials  and  common- 
ers, bent  on  wholesale  political  murder  of  their  own  country- 
men in  office,  because  the  latter  were  avowedly  committed  to 
a  reform  of  the  economical  and  judicial  condition  of  Korea, 
without  distinction  as  to  the  ill  success,  or  even,  in  certain 
particular  cases,  the  unfaithfulness  of  these  "reformers "  shows 
it  to  have  been  composed  of  three  classes  of  persons.  There 
were,  first,  the  high-class  officials  who,  with  one  exception, 
were  themselves  at  the  time  among  the  party  of  the  "outs"; 
and  who  undoubtedly  found  in  this  fact  the  chief  crime  of 
the  Japanese  administration  against  themselves.  There 
were,  second,  the  misguided  patriots  who,  beginning  with 
an  honorable  but  vain  unwillingness  to  admit  the  incapacity 
of  their  country  to  manage  its  own  affairs,  had  sunken  to  the 
condition  of  prejudice  and  hatred  which  made  them  plan  to 
murder  their  own  cabinet  ministers,  because  the  latter  had, 
however  reluctantly,  admitted  this  incapacity  and  acted  ac- 
cordingly. And  there  was,  third,  that  basest  of  all  criminals, 
the  cold-blooded,  unprincipled,  hired  assassin. 

The  administration  of  justice  in  an  even-handed  manner 
is  peculiarly  difficult  in  Korea;  and,  indeed,  until  recently  no 
serious  attempt  at  such  a  thing  has  ever  been  made.  In  the 
case  of  this  complicated  plot .  for  assassinating  the  entire 
Korean  Cabinet,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  several  of 
its  chief  promoters  were  very  highly  connected;  they  were, 
indeed,  connected  well  up  towards  His  Imperial  Majesty  on 
his  throne.  Considering  this  fact,  the  issue  when  reached 
showed  a  marked  improvement  already  established  in  judicial 
affairs.  It  was  indeed  rumored — and  perhaps  correctly— 
that  Mr.  Min  Hyung-sik,  the  Vice-Minister  of  Education, 


74  IN   KOREA   WITH  MARQUIS  IT<3 

underwent  preliminary  examination,  in  the  old-fashioned 
Korean  style,  by  being  cruelly  beaten.  And  the  anti- Japanese 
press  tried  to  make  it  count  against  Marquis  Ito's  measures 
for  judicial  reform  that  he  had  not  prevented  the  traditional 
Korean  mode  of  torturing  suspects !  But  this  way  of  examin- 
ing criminals  was  still  legal  in  Korea.  It  was  also  said  that 
Mr.  Yi  Yon-yung,  chief  of  the  Supreme  Court,  sent  in  his 
resignation,  on  the  ground  that,  as  his  younger  brother  was 
one  of  the  five  ministers  who  were  doomed  to  death  by  the 
assassins,  it  would  not  be  fair  for  him  to  try  the  case. 

At  the  time  of  our  leaving  Seoul  the  trial  of  these  con- 
spirators was  not  finished.  But  on  Wednesday,  July  3d,  at 
4  p.  M.,  the  Supreme  Court  returned  judgment  upon  twenty- 
nine  persons  who  had  been  tried  and  convicted  of  connection 
with  the  plot  to  assassinate  those  Korean  officials  who  took 
part  in  the  Japanese-Korean  Convention  of  November,  1905. 
Three  of  the  hired  murderers  who,  besides  this  crime,  were 
found  to  have  been  previously  guilty  of  armed  robbery,  were 
sentenced  to  death.  The  others  received  sentences  of  exile 
(a  penalty  feared  more  than  death  by  many  Korean  officials), 
for  periods  of  from  five  to  ten  years.  Among  those  to  whom 
the  longest  sentence  of  exile  was  measured  out,  were  the 
notable  names  of  Yi  Yong-tai,  ex-Minister  of  the  Imperial 
Household;  Soh  Chang-sik,  ex-Minister  Resident,  and  my 
auditor  at  the  lectures  on  education,  Min  Hyung-sik,  Vice- 
Minister  of  Education. 

Even  while  the  examination  of  this  group  of  assassins  was 
going  on,  and  after  the  change  in  the  Ministry  had  been 
effected,  another  plot  against  the  lives  of  the  same  men  was 
discovered.  This  conspiracy  was,  however,  less  important  as 
respects  the  rank  of  the  persons  involved  and  less  extensive  in 
the  number  of  those  participating.  Most  of  the  ten  Koreans 
thought  to  be  concerned  in  it  belonged  to  the  Yang-ban  class, 
or  the  "gentry,"  and  all  were  followers  of  Confucianism. 


LIFE  IN   SEOUL  75 

The  opinion  prevailed  that  the  motive  of  these  conspirators 
was  scarcely  to  any  degree  patriotic;  but  that  their  principal 
object  was  to  collect  money  from  the  disappointed  political 
groups  of  the  capital.  At  all  events,  seven  of  the  criminals 
were  arrested,  the  plot  broken  up  thoroughly,  and  another 
lesson  given  to  Korean  officialdom  that  assassination  is  no 
longer  to  be  so  sure  a  path  to  official  promotion  and  Imperial 
influence  as  it  has  too  often  been  in  the  past  history  of  the 
country. 

An  amusing  but  significant  incident  illustrative  of  Korean 
official  procedure  came  under  my  own  observation.  Prince 
Tokugawa,  who  had  been  staying  somewhat  more  than  a 
week  at  Miss  Sontag's,  before  leaving  Korea,  gave  an  uat 
home"  to  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  invited  guests.  Soon 
after  the  company  had  assembled,  and  while  the  ladies  were 
in  the  drawing-room  and  the  gentlemen  in  the  large  outer, 
enclosed  verandah,  suddenly  the  electric  lights  went  out  and 
the  company  were  left  in  total  darkness.  The  gentleman 
with  whom  I  was  conversing  at  the  moment  and  I  looked 
through,  the  glass  doors  of  the  verandah  and  observed  that 
the  electric  lights  outside  were  still  burning.  At  this  dis- 
covery my  companion,  who  had  had  some  experience  in  the 
ways  of  Seoul  diplomacy,  became  somewhat  disturbed,  and 
remarked:  "Such  things  sometimes  happen  by  previous  ar- 
rangement." Almost  immediately  after  the  sudden  darkness 
came  on,  a  servant  emerged  from  the  dining-hall  with  a 
lighted  taper,  and  crossing  to  the  drawing-room  proceeded  to 
light  the  numerous  candelabra.  At  the  heels  of  the  servant 
followed  Prince  Eui  Wha,  pale  with  fright,  on  his  way 
from  the  verandah  to  the  drawing-room,  where  he  slipped 
behind  a  barricade  of  ladies  and  planted  himself  against  the 
wall.  It  should  be  remembered  in  explanation  of  so  singular 
behavior  that  this  Prince,  although  he  is  the  Emperor's  son 
by  a  concubine,  is  hated  by  no  fewer  than  three  different 


76  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

parties;  these  are  the  Min  family,  who  favor  the  succession 
of  the  son  of  the  Queen,  the  party  of  Lady  Om,  who  would 
gladly  see  her  young  son  come  to  the  throne,  and  the  violently 
anti- Japanese  crowd  who  believe  that  Prince  Eui  Wha  is  too 
much  under  Japanese  influences.  It  had  been  rumored 
previously  that  a  letter  had  threatened  him  with  assassination. 
However  this  may  be,  the  present  was  not  the  expected  oc- 
casion; for  examination  showed  that  the  burning-out  of  a 
fuse  was  the  real  cause  of  the  sudden  darkness :  and  a  servant 
repaired  the  connection  so  that,  just  as  a  workman  hastily 
summoned  from  the  electric  plant,  entered  the  front  door,  the 
lights  as  suddenly  came  on  again. 

The  plots  for  assassination  undoubtedly  contributed  to  the 
causes  which  had  already  for  some  time  been  at  work  to 
make  necessary  a  change  in  the  Ministry.  In  spite  of  the 
enmity  which  the  existing  Cabinet  had  excited  on  account 
of  its  unwilling  part  in  the  Convention  of  November,  1905, 
it  had  held  together  for  a  remarkably  long  period  of  time. 
Not  all  its  members,  however,  were  equally  sincere  or  efficient 
in  carrying  out  the  reforms  to  which  they  had  pledged  them- 
selves; at  least  one  of  its  members  had  been  accused  of  a 
notable  attempt  at  the  old-time  manner  of  corrupt  adminis- 
tration of  office.  The  II  Chin-hoi  people,  or  members  of 
a  numerous  so-called  "  Independence  Society,"  had  been 
"heckling  the  Cabinet  Ministers"  by  accusing  them  of 
venality  and  incapacity.  In  a  memorial  forwarded  to  the 
Government  by  its  committee,  the  beginning  read:  "We 
herewith  write  you  and  enumerate  your  faults";  the  memorial 
ended  with  the  amusingly  frank  declaration :  "The  only  thing 
for  you  Cabinet  Ministers  to  do  is  to  resign  your  posts  and 
retire  into  private  life.  Your  armed  body-guards  are  entirely 
useless.  If  you  do  your  duties  assiduously  and  honestly, 
every  one  will  love  you;  but  if  you  pursue  idle  and  vicious 
courses,  every  man's  hand  will  be  against  you."*  Moreover, 


LIFE   IN   SEOUL  77 

the  acting  Prime  Minister  Pak,  although  of  good  intentions, 
had  not  developed  the  ability  to  lead  and  control  his  colleagues, 
and  he  was  probably  acting  wisely  when  he  insisted  on  having 
his  resignation  accepted.  The  resignation  of  their  chief 
involved  the  resignations  of  all  and  the  formation  of  a  new 
Ministry — although  not  necessarily  of  a  Ministry  composed 
wholly  of  new  members. 

On  returning  to  "Maison  Sontag"  about  ten  o'clock 
(Wednesday,  May  22d)  from  dining  out  we  found  our  hostess 
rather  worn  in  body  and  mentally  disturbed ;  she  had  herself 
just  reached  home  after  some  seven  hours  of  continuous 
service  in  the  Palace.  Mademoiselle  also  appeared  anxious 
about  the  comfort  and  health  of  the  Marquis  Ito,  who  had 
himself  been  there  during  a  similar  long  period,  and  who  had 
eaten  and  drunk  nothing  except  a  sandwich  and  a  glass  of 
claret  sent  in  by  her  to  His  Excellency.  The  resignation  of 
Premier  Pak  had  been  tendered  on  the  Monday  previous. 
The  next  morning  but  one,  the  Seoul  Press,  published  the  fol- 
lowing announcement: 

Marquis  Ito's  audience  with  the  Emperor  of  Korea  on  Wednes- 
day was  a  protracted  one,  it  being  nearly  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening 
before  His  Excellency  left  the  palace.  During  the  five  hours  that 
he  was  with  His  Majesty,  the  old  cabinet  was  dismissed  and  a  new 
one  called  into  existence.  The  new  Ministry  thus  formed  is  com- 
posed as  follows: 

Prime  Minister Yi  Wan-yong. 

Minister  of  Justice   ....*..     Yi  Ha-yong. 

Minister  of  Finance Min  Yong-ki. 

Minister  of  the  Interior     ....     In  Sun-jun. 

Minister  of  War        Yi  Pyong-mu. 

Minister  of  Education        .     .     .     .     Yi  Chai-kon. 

As  the  same  paper  subsequently  remarked,  this  change  of 
government,  which  had  taken  place  with  a  quite  unequalled 


78  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

promptitude  and  quiet,  followed  upon  a  conversation  in  which 
the  "  Resident- General  spoke  to  the  Emperor  on  the  general 
situation  in  a  remarkably  frank  and  outspoken  manner." 

The  substance  of  this  conversation  between  Marquis  Ito 
and  the  Korean  Emperor  in  this  memorable  interview  was 
probably  somewhat  as  follows:  His  Majesty  was  reminded 
of  the  Marquis'  regret  that  a  change  of  Ministry  had  become 
necessary;  for  under  existing  circumstances  it  was  desirable 
to  avoid  as  much  as  possible  the  friction  likely  to  accompany 
such  a  change.  But  Minister  Pak  insisted  on  resigning  and 
the  others,  of  course,  must  follow  his  example.  Now  the 
history  of  the  country  showed,  as  the  Emperor  well  knew,  that 
changes  in  the  Cabinet  were  a  signal  for  all  manner  of  con- 
fusion in  the  Government,  caused  by  the  intrigue  of  parties 
contending  for  the  control.  Promptness  of  action  would 
alone  prevent  this.  His  Excellency  wished  to  remain  in  the 
palace  until  the  new  Ministry  was  constituted.  Under 
existing  circumstances  it  was  most  desirable  that  the  new 
Prime  Minister  should  be  a  man  who  could  be  trusted;  and 
that,  in  order  to  secure  internal  harmony  and  freedom  from 
intrigue  within  the  Cabinet  itself,  he  should  have  a  choice 
in  the  selection  of  his  colleagues.  He  should  also  have  a 
policy,  should  explain  it  to  the  others,  and  thus  secure  their 
intelligent  and  hearty  co-operation  and  support.  In  His 
Excellency's  opinion,  Mr.  Yi  Wan-yong,  the  then  acting 
Minister  of  Education,  was  the  man,  of  all  others,  most 
suitable  for  the  position  of  Premier.  This  advice — accom- 
panied, as  it  doubtless  was,  by  words  of  plain  but  friendly 
warning  as  to  the  consequences  of  continuing  the  old-time 
policy  of  intrigue,  deceit,  and  submission  to  the  counsels  of 
base-born  and  unscrupulous  fellows,  who  were  always 
planning  to  deceive  and  ipb  the  Emperor  in  order  to  profit 
themselves — was  finally  followed. 

The  Ministry  of  Agriculture,   Commerce  and  Industry, 


LIFE  IN  SEOUL  79 

which  for  practical  importance  stood  next  to  that  of  the  Prime 
Minister,  and  which  had  been  rather  unworthily  filled  by  its 
previous  occupant,  was  for  the  time  being  combined  with  the 
Prime  Minister's.  Soon  after,  the  Minister  of  Justice  and 
the  Minister  of  Finance  of  the  new  Cabinet  insisted  upon 
resigning,  and  Mr.  Cho  Chung-yung  and  Mr.  Ko  Yong-hui 
were  appointed  to  the  vacant  positions.  At  the  same  time 
the  vacant  portfolio  which  had  been  temporarily  left  in  the 
hands  of  the  Prime  Minister  was  given  to  Mr.  Song  Pyong- 
chun.  With  these  changes  and  this  additional  appointment 
a  new  Cabinet  was  arranged  in  the  briefest  possible  time, 
without  popular  excitement,  and  without  opportunity  for 
corrupt  intrigue. 

An  analysis  of  the  personnel  of  the  new  Ministry  shows  that 
it  was  composed  of  comparatively  young  men  and  of  men  who 
had,  on  the  whole,  previously  sustained  a  fair  reputation. 
It  also  was  much  more  obviously  a  reform  Cabinet;  its 
material  was  both  more  mouldable  and  more  homogeneous. 
The  Home  Minister  had  been  the  President  of  "Song-kyun 
College"  (a  Confucian  institution);  the  War  Minister,  who 
was  speedily  made  a  Major- General,  had  received  a  thorough 
military  education  in  Japan  and  had  been  director  of  the 
Korean  Military  Academy.  The  new  Minister  of  Education 
had  at  one  time  been  Vice-Minister  in  the  same  department. 

Almost  immediately  the  new  Cabinet,  in  accordance  with 
the  significant  decision  to  hold  a  Council  every  Tuesday  at 
the  official  residence  of  the  Resident-General,  met  to  shape 
a  more  definite  public  policy.  A  full  report  of  the  speech 
made  to  them  on  this  occasion  by  Marquis  Ito,  and  of  the 
response  made  by  Premier  Yi,  was  published  for  Korea, 
Japan,  and  all  the  world  to  read.  In  this  address  the  Marquis 
claimed  that  he  had  now,  since  his  arrival  one  year  ago,  acted 
in  perfect  good  faith,  with  the  immovable  intention  to  do  all 
in  his  power  to  cement  friendship  between  Japan  and  Korea, 


8o  IN  KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

and  to  develop  the  latter 's  resources.  The  most  urgent  need 
for  Korea  at  present  was  a  reformed  administration.  Re- 
viewing the  history  of  the  past  thirty  years  in  the  Far  East, 
with  which  his  own  experiences  had  made  him  particularly 
familiar,  he  recalled  before  them  his  persistent  advocacy  of 
peaceful  measures  as  opposed  to  those  of  a  punitive  war. 
But  it  was  for  Korea  herself  to  say  whether  such  measures 
should  prevail  as  would  insure  her  independence  in  home 
affairs  and  peaceful  self -development,  or  not.  If  the  present 
Cabinet  did  not  agree  with  him,  let  them  frankly  and  bravely 
say,  No!  If  they  concurred  in  his  opinion,  let  them  free 
themselves  of  selfish  motives  and  unite  in  bringing  about  the 
common  good.  To  this  address  of  Marquis  Ito,  Mr.  Yi,  the 
Premier,  replied  in  behalf  of  his  colleagues.  After  thanking 
the  Resident-General  for  his  advice,  he  promised  that  the  new 
Ministry  would  unite  under  his  guidance,  and  "despite  all 
obstacles  and  in  the  face  of  any  dangers  that  might  lie  in  the 
way,  would  endeavor  to  attain  their  object — the  best  good 
of  their  country." 

Other  measures  followed  rapidly,  all  of  which  tended  to 
constitute  a  Cabinet  which  should  be  a  really  -  effective 
administrative  body,  relatively  free  from  court  intrigue  and 
from  the  fear  of  internal  treachery.  These  measures,  taken 
together,  secured  a  new  official  system,  the  beginnings  of  real 
government  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  Korea,  as  the 
following  quotation  will  show: 

According  to  the  new  system  the  present  Council  of  State  is  to 
be  called  hereafter  the  Cabinet,  and  the  President  of  the  Council 
of  State  the  Prime  Minister.  The  respective  Ministers  of  State 
shall  give  their  advice  to  the  Emperor,  and  be  responsible  for  the 
management  of  important  matters  of  State.  All  laws,  imperial 
edicts,  the  budget,  the  final  account,  any  and  all  expenditure  that 
is  not  provided  for  in  the  budget,  the  appointment,  dismissal  and 
promotion  of  Government  officials  and  officers,  amnesty  and 


LIFE  IN  SEOUL  81 

pardon,  and  other  affairs  of  State,  shall  require  the  deliberation 
and  consent  of  all  the  Ministers  of  State  as  well  as  the  counter- 
signature  of  them  all.  In  short,  the  new  system  aims  at  the 
enlargement  of  the  power  of  the  Government  in  order  to  enable 
it  to  stand  independent  of  outward  influence. 

How  complete  a  bloodless  revolution  was  accomplished  in 
this  quiet  and  almost  unnoticed  way  will  be  made  more  ap- 
parent later  on  when  it  can  be  viewed  in  its  larger  historical 
and  political  settings.  That  His  Majesty  the  Korean  Em- 
peror did  not  like  the  change,  needs  scarcely  to  be  said. 
The  enlargement  of  the  power  of  the  Government  meant  the 
diminishing  of  the  Imperial  power  to  dispose  of  the  offices, 
the  possessions,  not  only  of  the  Crown  but  also  of  individuals 
and  of  the  nation,  and  the  lives  of  the  subjects,  without  re- 
gard to  law,  order,  justice,  or  the  semblance  of  equity.  There 
is  equally  little  need  to  say  that  the  Yang-bans  and  the  cor- 
rupt courtiers  and  local  magistrates,  as  well  as  the  court- 
eunuchs  and  sorceresses,  were  in  the  opposition.  But  only 
by  such  changes  is  to  be  constituted  the  true  "  Passing  of 
Korea,"  in  a  manner  to  commend  itself  to  every  genuine 
patriot  and  to  all  foreigners  who  honestly  care  for  the  good 
of  the  Koreans  and  for  the  welfare  of  the  Far  East. 

The  Emperor  at  first  was  reported  to  have  attacks  of  being 
"indisposed,"  which  prevented  his  seeing  the  Ministers  when 
they  came  for  consultation,  or  for  the  imperial  sanction  to 
their  acts  under  the  new  regime.  But,  on  the  whole,  his 
health  gradually  so  improved  that  he  was  able  to  accept  the 
situation  with  more  apparent  acquiescence,  if  not  inner 
complacency.  And  the  fright  which  soon  arose  over  the 
serious  consequences  that  were  to  follow  his  alleged  Com- 
mission of  Koreans  and  their  " foreign  friend"  to  enter 
formal  protest  against  Japan  at  The  Hague  Peace  Confer- 
ence, at  least  for  the  time  being  made  the  humiliations  suf- 
fered from  his  own  subjects  at  home  the  easier  to  be  borne* 


82  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

According  to  unfailing  Korean  custom,  it  was  to  be  ex- 
pected that  the  ex-Ministers  would  become  at  once  opponents 
of  their  successors  in  office  and  powerful  factors  in  the  in- 
trigues designed  to  destroy  the  influence  of  the  latter  with 
the  Emperor.  The  success  of  the  new  Ministry,  especially 
in  the  matter  of  those  reforms  which  made  Marquis  Ito's 
administration  so  obnoxious  to  the  ruling  classes,  was  there- 
fore in  peril  from  the  Ministry  that  had  resigned.  But  in- 
fluence of  a  private  and  suspicious  character  with  His  Ma- 
jesty had  become,  under  the  new  regime,  less  important  and 
less  likely  to  be  profitable;  and  the  ex-Ministers  were  not 
only  to  be  rendered  innocuous,  even  if  any  of  them  might 
at  any  time  be  disposed  to  do  harm,  but  were  also  them- 
selves to  be  committed  by  motives  of  personal  interest  to  a 
more  responsible,  relatively  reformed  mode  of  administering 
national  affairs.  The  new  Korean  Government  decided  to 
"create"  the  office  of  "Councillor  in  the  Privy  Council"; 
the  ex-Ministers  were  themselves  promptly  appointed  to  this 
office.  They  were  given  comfortable  salaries,  and  three  of 
them — including  the  one  who  had  been  publicly  reported  as 
having  put  on  a  coat-of-mail  and  secreted  himself  in  his  own 
house,  through  fear  of  assassination,  at  the  time  of  his 
resignation — were  sent  on  a  tour  of  inspection  to  Japan. 
Here  they  were  received  in  audience  by  His  Imperial  Maj- 
esty the  Emperor  of  Japan,  and  so  well  treated  that  they 
might  reasonably  be  expected  to  return  to  their  own  country 
with  a  spirit  of  hearty  co-operation  in  measures  for  reforming 
the  condition  of  their  own  country  after  the  Japanese  model. 

Among  the  other  events  of  the  spring  months  of  1907  was 
one  which,  while  in  itself  considered,  was  relatively  unim- 
portant, was  destined  to  become  of  no  small  political  in- 
fluence upon  the  Japanese  policy  in  Korea  and  upon  the 
relation  of  the  Emperor  and  the  court  circle  to  that  policy. 
This  was  the  sudden  departure,  after  selling  his  effects  at 


LIFE  IN  SEOUL  83 

auction,  of  Mr.  Homer  B.  Hulbert.  It  does  not  belong  to 
the  story  we  have  to  tell,  to  speak  of  the  previous  history  of 
this  gentleman  in  Korea,  or  of  his  views. on  historical  sub- 
jects when  involving  the  character  of  the  Japanese,  except  so 
far  as  the  statement  of  the  facts  and  truths  of  history  makes 
such  reference — mostly  indirect — indispensable.  But  on  this 
particular  occasion  what  transpired  of  Mr.  Hulbert's  trans- 
actions with  the  Emperor  is  so  intimately  connected  with 
the  political  events  of  the  period  that  some  special  mention 
of  them  cannot  properly  be  omitted. 

Immediately  on  my  return  from  Chemulpo,  Wednesday, 
May  8th,  I  found  the  excitement  of  the  day  was  over  the 
following  questions:  "What  was  Mr.  Hulbert's  motive  for 
leaving  Seoul  so  suddenly  ?  Where  is  he  going  ?  and  What  is 
his  business?"  Now  the  Korean  Daily  News,  the  violently 
anti- Japanese  paper  which  was  currently  believed  to  receive 
the  support  of  Mr.  Hulbert,  in  the  forms  of  friendship  with 
its  editor,  writing  some  of  its  editorials,  and  interest  in  its 
receiving  subsidies,  had  just  published  as  a  despatch  from 
-Paris  (dated  May  3d)  the  following  illuminating  statements : 
"Korea  will  also  participate  in  The  Hague  Peace  Con- 
ference"; but  then  again:  "It  is  reported  that  Japan  will 
represent  Korea  at  the  Conference."  The  conjecture, 
therefore,  was  very  promptly  made  by  those  in  the  diplomatic 
service  in  Seoul  that  the  Emperor  had  again  given  another 
large  sum  of  money  to  the  same  hands,  with  the  same  hope, 
as  formerly,  of  procuring  foreign  assistance  or  even  inter- 
vention. This  was,  however,  hard  to  credit  even  by  those 
most  suspicious;  for,  from  the  Japanese  point  of  view,  such 
a  transaction  would  have  been  on  the  recipient's  part  very 
like  "obtaining  money  under  false  pretences,"  and  on  the 
giver's  part,  a  breach  of  the  compact  with  Japan  which 
might  seriously  impair,  or  even  endanger,  the  imperial  in- 
terests. That  such  a  commission  was  a  breach  of  treaty- 


84  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

obligations  will  be  made  perfectly  clear  when  we  come  to  nar- 
rate the  true  history  of  the  compact  made  in  November,  1905. 
Inquiry  resulted  only  in  finding  that  Mr.  Hulbert's  real 
plans  in  going,  and  even  his  reasons  for  going  at  all,  had  not 
been  confided  to  any  of  his  most  intimate  friends.  His 
Korean  associates,  outside  of  the  very  few  higher  officials 
that  might  be  in  the  secret,  held  the  absurd  opinion  that  he 
had  been  bought  off  from  his  devotion  to  them  by  the  Mar- 
quis Ito,  to  whose  official  residence  he  had  resorted  for  a 
conference  and  an  agreement  as  to  terms.  To  the  other 
foreigners  he  had  assigned  the  condition  of  his  family  affairs 
as  the  reason  for  his  removal.  To  one  of  his  more  intimate 
friends  among  the  missionaries  he  had  claimed  that,  having 
heard  of  a  wealthy  American  who  might  be  induced  to  give 
a  large  sum  of  money  to  found  an  educational  institution  in 
Korea,  he  was  going  to  try  to  secure  the  gift.  The  only 
points  of  agreement  were  that  the  journey  was  to  be  made 
over  the  Siberian  Railway,  and  that  there  was  to  be  a  con- 
siderable stop  in  St.  Petersburg.  In  a  quite  unexpected  but 
entirely  authentic  way  it  became  known  to  me  within  a  few 
hours  that  Mr.  Hulbert  had  indeed  gone  from  Seoul  with  a 
large  gift  of  money  from  His  Majesty  and  with  an  important 
commission  to  execute.  Although  the  precise  amount  of  the 
imperial  gift  continued  for  some  time  to  be  variously  esti- 
mated and  reported,  and  although  its  precise  uses  may  never 
be  inquired  into — not  to  say  made  public;  that  a  Commis- 
sion appeared  at  The  Hague,  and  its  fate,  are  now  matters 
of  the  world's  political  history.  As  such,  it  will  be  referred  to 
elsewhere.1 

1  It  is  now  proper  to  say,  since  his  own  abdication  and  the  Conven- 
tion of  July,  1907,  have  followed,  that  the  Korean  Emperor  after  re- 
peated denials,  confessed  at  the  time  to  a  faithful  foreign  friend  (not  a 
Japanese)  that  he  had  given  to  Mr.  Hulbert  a  large  sum  of  money  to 
execute  a  certain  commission  the  nature  of  which  he  kept  secret.  In 
spite  of  this  friend's  importunate  urging  and  vivid  representation  of 


LIFE  IN   SEOUL  85 

It  would  be  a  great  mistake,  however,  to  suppose  that 
Seoul  had  no  other  charms  for  us  as  visitors  than  the  oppor- 
tunity for  delivering  lectures  and  for  witnessing,  from  outside 
and  inside  points  of  view,  the  human  puppets  which  suppose 
themselves  to  be  defeating  the  plans  of  that  Supreme  Ethical 
Spirit  who  shapes  the  destiny  of  nations,  in  partnership  with 
those  who  partake  of  the  spirit  with  which  He  inspires  the 
"men  of  good-will."  The  Court  intrigues,  and  even  the 
assassination  of  the  Ministry,  had  little  disturbing  effect  upon 
foreign  business  or  foreign  social  life  in  the  capital  of  Korea. 
With  the  former  it  made  no  difference  of  practical  importance 
beyond  the  temporary  check,  perhaps,  to  some  promoting 
scheme  which  depended  upon  the  personality  of  the  Court 
favorites  for  its  Imperial  support.  There  was  no  particular 
reason  why  society  should  heed  such  familiar  occurrences. 
The  weather  was  fine;  the  luxuriant  bloom  of  the  Korean 
spring  and  the  vivid  and  changeful  coloring  of  the  mountains 
surrounding  Seoul,  invited  to  out-of-doors  entertainments; 
and  no  foreigner's  life  was  then  in  any  danger.  For,  as  to 
the  last  feature  favoring  open-air  sociability,  the  foreign 
visitor  or  resident  need  have  little  fear  within  the  city  walls, 
so  long  as  the  mob  is  not  aroused  and  in  control.  Aside 
from  one  or  two  articles  in  the  Seoul  Press,  and  the  grave 
rebukes  of  the  Resident-General,  I  neither  heard,  nor  heard 
of,  any  voice  raised  against  the  immorality  and  crime  of 
political  intrigue  and  political  assassination.  There  was  at 
the  time  no  Savonarola  or  Martin  Luther  in  Korea.  But, 
then,  in  what  part  of  America,  or  country  of  Europe,, is  such 
a  prophet  now  to  be  found?  In  Korea,  as  elsewhere,  pol- 

what  the  consequences  of  the  act  might  be  to  himself  and  to  his  family, 
His  Majesty  refused  to  telegraph  a  recall  of  the  commission.  He  did, 
however,  so  far  yield  to  the  same  pleading  as  to  agree  not  to  furnish  a 
further  sum  of  money  which  had  been  asked  in  behalf  of  the  influence 
of  another  "foreign  friend,"  the  editor  of  the  most  violently  anti-Japan- 
ese newspaper. 


86  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

itics  and  morals  seemed  only  remotely  related,  even  in  the 
minds  of  the  teachers  of  religion. 

The  foreign  society  of  Seoul,  including,  of  course,  the 
Japanese,  is  small,  but  homogeneous  and  agreeable.  It  is, 
indeed,  composed  of  several  nationalities  and  of  varied  occu- 
pations— from  that  of  the  shrewd  and  hardened  diplomat 
to  the  unsuspecting  but  devout  missionary.  But  whatever 
differences  of  views  and  habits,  or  more  important  oppositions, 
lie  hidden  beneath,  when  the  gathering  is  social,  there  is  a 
cordial  interchange  of  courtesies  and  an  appearance  of  good- 
will. There  can  'be  no  doubt  that  much  of  this  socially- 
uniting  influence  has  its  source  in  the  will  of  the  Japanese 
Resident- General;  and  just  as  little  doubt  that  the  Japanese 
Imperial  treasury  is  somewhat  heavily  drawn  upon  for  the 
expenses.  But  it  is  worth  for  Korea  all  that  it  costs — and 
more.  Especially  true  is  this,  when  we  consider  the  effect 
which  is  had  in  this  way  upon  the  Korean  upper  classes 
themselves.  Indeed,  it  is  foreign  social  amenities  and  de- 
cencies, under  the  brave  and  efficient  leadership  of  the  lady 
in  whose  house  we  stayed,  that  have  made  the  Korean  court 
functions  half-way  tolerable,  and  that  to  this  hour  prevent 
the  housekeeping  of  the  Palace  from  relapsing  into  an  intoler- 
able condition  of  filth  and  disorder.  But  what  the  social 
functions  that  are  now  -encouraged  by  the  Resident-General 
are  in  a  measure  doing  is  chiefly  valuable  by  way  of  bringing 
the  Korean  upper  classes  into  apparently — and  as,  I  believe, 
the  event  will  prove,  genuinely — friendly  relations  with  the 
Japanese.  This  effect  has  already  showed  itself  to  a  con- 
siderable extent  in  the  case  of  the  Korean  gentlemen.  Not 
only  those  who  have  been  abroad,  and  those  who  are  now 
going  abroad  (for  the  most  part,  to  Japan),  but  even  the 
others  are  coming  to  appreciate  the  value  of  more  cleanly 
and  elegant  ways  of  enjoying  one's  self  socially  than  were 
conceivable  by  their  ancestors.  Gluttony,  drunkenness, 


LIFE   IN   SEOUL  87 

filthy  habits  and  surroundings,  seem  less  natural  and  at- 
tractive by  comparison  with  a  few  degrees  of  higher  social 
refinement.  The  hardest  crust  to  break  will  doubtless  be 
that  which  encompasses  and  crushes  the  Korean  lady.  In 
Japan  there  has  never  been  anything  quite  comparable  to  the 
still  present  degrading  influences  bearing  upon  the  woman- 
hood of  the  upper  classes  in  Korea.  But  while  we  were  in 
Seoul,  for  the  first  time  so  far  as  known  in  its  history,  a 
Korean  lady  walked  upon  the  streets,  and  after  making 
several  calls  in  this  fashion,  rode  home  in  the  electric  car! 
Her  companion  was  a  Japanese  lady,  and  the  two  were  selling 
tickets  to  a  public  entertainment  given  in  behalf  of  a  benevo- 
lent enterprise.  Being  present  ourselves  at  this  same  en- 
tertainment, we  saw  to  our  surprise  quite  one  hundred  Korean 
women,  dressed  in  their  native  costume,  enter  the  theatre, 
and  seat  themselves  among  the  Japanese  of  their  own  sex. 
If  this  thing  goes  on,  racial  hatred  is  doomed.  For  soon  it  is 
to  be  hoped,  or  feared,  according  to  one's  point  of  view,  that 
Korean  ladies  will  attend  garden  parties  and,  perhaps, 
finally,  frequent  afternoon  teas  and  evening  receptions,  at 
which  foreigners  of  both  sexes  are  present.  And  this,  I  am 
sure,  is  a  sight  never  as  yet  beheld  by  mortal  eyes;  at  least 
my  eyes  saw  no  sign  of  its  beginning  as  yet  in  the  now  half- 
opened  "Hermit  Kingdom." 

A  few  days  after  our  arrival  our  host  gave  us  an  afternoon 
reception  at  the  Residency  House.  It  was  a  beautiful  day; 
and  the  grounds,  which  had  been  decorated  as  it  is  difficult 
for  other  than  the  Japanese  professionals  to  do,  were  beau- 
tiful as  was  the  day.  The  first  two  hours  were  spent  upon 
the  hill  above  the  Residence,  from  which  there  are  fine  and 
extensive  views  of  Seoul  and  its  environing  mountains. 
There,  in  the  several  well-situated  booths  and  tea-houses, 
light  refreshments  were  served.  There,  too,  we  were  intro- 
duced to  the  whole  of  Seoul  "society,"  some  of  whom  we 


88  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

were  glad  to  call  our  "friends,"  when  we  parted  from  them 
nearly  two  months  later.  The  Japanese  officials,  the  foreign 
Consuls,  with  their  wives  and  daughters,  the  Korean  officials 
without  their  families,  the  Roman  Catholic  Archbishop  and 
the  Protestant  missionaries,  and  a  few  of  the  leading  business 
people,  made  up  that  sort  of  a  gathering  which  is  most 
thoroughly  human  and  most  interesting.  A  collation,  with 
chatting  and  hand-shaking,  in  the  Marquis'  apartments 
closed  a  delightful  afternoon. 

Of  the  various  garden  parties,  luncheons,  dinners,  and 
receptions,  which  followed  and  not  only  enlivened  the  other- 
wise somewhat  dull  life  of  lecturing,  reading,  consulting,  and 
observing,  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak  in  detail.  The  visit 
of  Prince  Tokugawa  and  his  party  to  Seoul,  which  was 
extended  for  some  ten  days,  was  very  properly  made  the  occa- 
sion of  a  series  of  festivities,  at  most  of  which  they  were  the 
guests  of  honor;,  but  at  the  last  of  which — a  reception  given 
in  Miss  Sontag's  house — Prince  Tokugawa  was  himself  the 
host.  The  unaffected  friendly  bearing  of  these  Japanese 
gentlemen  toward  the  Koreans,  with  whom  they  were  thus 
brought  in  contact,  helped  to  soften  the  anti- Japanese  feeling; 
and  since  on  one,  at  least,  of  these  occasions,  the  reception  given 
by  Mr.  Megata,  not  only  the  foreign  diplomats  but  also  a 
number  of  the  foreign  missionaries  were  invited,  it  gave  to 
the  latter  a  somewhat  unaccustomed  opportunity  to  observe 
at  close  hand  the  enlightening  fact  that  Japan,  like  all  other 
so-called  civilized  nations,  does  not  have  its  true  character 
best  represented  by  its  coolies,  low-lived  adventurers,  camp- 
followers,  and  land-grabbing  pioneers. 

I  close  this  brief  description  of  our  varied  experiences  in 
Seoul  with  a  warning  against  a  very  common  but,  in  my  judg- 
ment, quite  fallacious  view  of  the  relation  in  which  the  capital 
city  stands  to  the  entire  country  of  Korea.  It  is  customary 
to  say  that  "  Seoul- w  Korea"  just  as  " Paris  is  France."  But 


LIFE   IN   SEOUL  89 

this  is  even  less  true  in  the  macrocosm  of  Seoul  than  in  the 
macrocosm  of  Paris.  It  is  indeed  true,  as  Dr.  Jones  has  said, 
that  "as  the  capital  of  the  Empire  its  political  pre-eminence 
is  undisputed.  Intellectually  and  socially  it  has  ruled  Korea 
with  an  iron  hand  for  half  a  millennium."  But  it  is  also  true 
that  the  real  interests  and  undeveloped  material  and  human 
resources  of  the  nation  are  in  the  country;  and  that  the 
uneconomical,  ignorant,  and  depressed  condition  of  the  people 
outside  of  Seoul  is  the  chief  concern  of  all  who  really  care  for 
the  welfare  of  Korea.  The  local  magistrates  must  be  re- 
formed, or  the  well-nigh  hopeless  task  of  reforming  the 
corrupt  Court  at  Seoul  would  be,  if  it  could  be  accomplished, 
of  little  value  to  the  nation.  And  if  it  becomes  necessary,  in 
order  to  effect  this  reform,  and  so  to  bring  about  the  redemp- 
tion, industrially,  educationally,  morally  and  religiously,  of 
the  people  of  the  country,  then  the  "iron  hand"  which  rules 
them  from  Seoul  must  be  either  gloved  or  broken  in  pieces. 
But,  in  truth,  the  idol  at  Seoul  which  the  Koreans  worship  is 
an  image  of  clay. 


CHAPTER  V 

A  VISIT   TO   PYENG-YANG 

FROM  the  historical,  as  well  as  the  geographical  and  com- 
mercial points  of  view,  the  city  of  Pyeng-yang  (spelled  also 
Pyong-yang  and  in  various  other  ways)  is  the  most  important 
place  in  all  Northern  Korea.  It  has  frequently  been  be- 
sieged and  assaulted,  both  by  Japanese  invaders  from  the 
south  and  by  various  forces — Mongolian,  Chinese,  Manchu — 
coming  down  from  the  north  to  pour  their  devastating  hordes 
over  the  country.  It  was  hither  that  the  Korean  king  fled  } 
before  the  armies  of  "men  in  fierce-looking  helmets  and 
bright  armor  with  little  pennons  at  their  backs  bearing  their 
names  and  family  badges,"  which  were  sent  against  him  by 
Hideyoshi  more  than  three  hundred  years  ago.  The  city 
is  beautifully  situated;  it  is  by  nature  constituted  for  all  time 
as  a  principal  centre  for  distributing  over  the  Yellow  Sea  the 
industrial  products  of  fertile  North  Korea  and  for  receiving 
in  return  whatever  the  adjoining  parts  of  China  and  Manchu- 
ria may  furnish  for  coastwise  trade. 

Previous  to  the  China- Japan  war  there  were  probably  not 
more  than  a  half-score  of  Japanese  within  the  walled  city  of 
Pyeng-yang.  But  some  two  years  after  the  end  of  this  war 
the  Japanese  colony  had  grown  to  several  hundred  souls. 
During  and  after  the  war  with  Russia,  however,  the  increase 
of  this  colony  was  so  rapid  that  it  could  find  no  room  within 
the  walls  of  the  city.  It  therefore  burst  through,  as  it 

were,  the  barrier  of  these  walls  and  built  a  new  city  for 

90 


A  VISIT  TO   PYENG-YANG  91 

itself  outside  the  South  Gate,  which,  like  all  similar  en- 
terprises in  Korea,  by  its  neat  dwellings  and  shops,  its 
clean  and  broad  streets,  and  its  general  air  of  prosperity, 
contrasts  with,  and  forms  an  object  lesson  to,  the  Korean 
city  within  the  walls. 

The  original  inhabitants  of  the  Japanese  city  were  by  no 
means  altogether  of  the  class  most  creditable  to  Japan,  or 
comfortable  as  neighbors  for  the  Korean  population.  There 
were  many  adventurers,  hangers-on  and  panderers  to  the 
army,  who  did  not  stop  at  either  fraud  or  violence  in  their 
treatment  of  the  native  population  of  Pyeng-yang.  And 
while  the  Japanese  army  during  the  war  behaved  with  most 
admirable  moderation  and  discipline  here,  as  elsewhere  in 
Korea  and  Manchuria,  at  its  close  even  the  military  authorities 
were  not  as  scrupulous  as  they  should  have  been  by  way  of 
appropriating  land  and  other  necessaries  for  their  permanent 
occupation.  The  wrongs  which  were  then  committed  are, 
however,  as  far  as  possible  in  such  cases,  now  being  measure- 
ably  remedied  or  compensated  for;  and  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  the  withdrawal  of  the  divisional  headquarters  of  the 
Japanese  army  has  affected  somewhat  seriously  the  retail 
trade,  and  there  still  continues  to  be  more  or  less  of  disturbing 
friction  between  dealers  of  the  two  nationalities,  and  a  crop 
of  disputes  over  land-claims  that  need  settlement,  there  is 
now  a  prosperous  Japanese  city,  with  some  5,000  inhabitants. 
The  Korean  city  is  also  growing  in  numbers  and  prosperity. 
As  the  two  nationalities  come  to  know  and  understand  each 
other  better,  that  will  inevitably,  but  happily,  take  place  here 
which  has  already  taken  place  at  Chemulpo.  They  will 
learn  the  better  to  respect  each  other,  and  each  other's  rights; 
and  to  live  together  in  freedom  from  outbreaking  strife  and 
sullen  bitterness,  if  not  in  perfect  harmony.  It  was  a  good 
indication  of  this  possibility  to  learn  that  the  Japanese 
Resident  in  Pyeng-yang  already  has  coming  to  his  court  for 


92  IN  KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

adjustment  more  cases  of  Koreans  against  Koreans  than  of 
Koreans  against  his  own  countrymen. 

The  invitation  to  visit  this  interesting  and  important  city 
was  most  prompt  and  cordial.  It  came  within  a  few  days 
of  our  arrival  in  Seoul.  In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  fact  that 
I  was  suffering  from  a  somewhat  severe  attack  of  influenza, 
brought  on  in  the  quite  ordinary  way  of  breathing  in  the  dust 
of  the  streets  of  the  capital  city,  we  started  for  Pyeng-yang, 
accompanied  by  Mr.  Zumoto,  by  the  early  morning  train  of 
April  5th.  To  make  the  journey  more  surely  comfortable, 
and  to  emphasize  the  relation  of  the  travellers  to  the  Resident- 
General,  the  party  was  escorted  about  half-way  by  one  rail- 
road official,  who,  having  committed  us  to  another  that  had 
come  on  from  Pyeng-yang  for  the  purpose,  himself  returned 
to  his  duties  at  Seoul. 

The  night  before  had  been  rainy — a  somewhat  unusual 
thing  in  such  abundance  at  this  time  of  year;  but  by  noon 
the  sky  and  air  had  cleared,  and  the  strong  sunlight  brought 
out  the  colors  of  the  landscape  in  a  way  characteristic  of  the 
usual  climate  of  Korea  in  the  early  Spring.  The  railway 
from  Seoul  to  Wiju  is  being  very  largely  built  over  again; 
so  that  part  of  the  time  our  train  was  running  over  the  perma- 
nent way  and  part  of  the  time  over  the  military  road  which 
was  quite  too  hastily  constructed  to  be  left  after  the  war  in 
a  satisfactory  state.  This  process  of  reconstruction  consists 
in  straightening  curves,  adjusting  grades,  erecting  stone 
sustaining-walls  and  heavy,  steel  bridges;  as  well  as  in  mak- 
ing the  old  bed,  where  it  is  followed,  more  solid  and  better 
ballasted.  The  part  of  Korea  through  which  we  were 
now  passing  was  obviously  more  fertile  and  better  cultivated 
than  the  part  lying  between  Fusan  and  Seoul.  There  were 
even  some  portions  of  the  main  highway  which  resembled  a 
passable  jinrikisha  road  in  Japan,  instead  of  the  wretched 
and  well-nigh  impassable  footpaths  which  are  often  the  only 


A  VISIT   TO   PYENG-YANG 


93 


thoroughfares  further  south.  In  places,  also,  the  peasants 
seemed  to  have  overcome  their  fears,  both  of  the  laws  punish- 
ing sacrilege  and  also  of  the  avenging  spirits  of  the  dead; 
for  the  burial  mounds  had  been  replaced  by  terraces  which 
enabled  the  fields  to  be  cultivated  nearly  or  quite  to  the  tops 
of  the  hills. 

On  our  arrival  at  the  station  in  Pyeng-yang  two  of  the 
missionaries  met  us  with  a  friendly  greeting.  Before  taking 
our  jinrikishas  for  the  house  of  Dr.  Noble,  who  was  to  be  our 
host,  I  walked  for  a  short  distance  over  the  gravelled  plain 
surrounding  the  station  to  where  some  100  or  120  school-boys 
were  drawn  up  in  military  line  to  give  the  foreign  teacher  a 
welcome.  This  promptly  took  his  mind  and  heart  back  to 
Japan  as  well  as  carried  it  forward  to  the  future  generation  of 
Korean  men.  On  one  side,  dressed  in  kakhi  and  looking 
very  important,  stood  the  larger  number,  who  were  members 
of  the  Christian  school,  connected  with  the  Methodist  mission. 
But  right  opposite  in  Korean  costume  of  plum-colored  cloth 
were  arrayed  some  thirty  or  forty  pupils  of  a  neighboring 
Confucian  school.  It  was  a  matter  of  interest  and  significance 
to  learn  that  just  recently  the  latter,  on  receiving  overtures  of 
friendly  alliance,  had  agreed  to  a  meeting  for  the  discussion  of 
terms;  and  when  the  proposal  had  been  made  that  the 
"heathen  school"  should  become  Christian,  it  had  been 
promptly  accepted !  This  was,  of  course,  a  way  of  achieving 
unity  entirely  satisfactory  to  the  missionaries.  At  the  time 
of  our  visit  the  wife  of  the  head-master  of  the  Confucian 
school  and  the  wife  .of  one  of  the  teachers  had  become  earnest 
and  active  Bible-women. 

While  we  were  being  conveyed  in  jinrikishaSj  to  the  foot 
of  the  hill  on  which  stands  the  house  of  our  host,  and  as  well 
the  church  and  other  buildings  belonging  to  the  mission,  the 
Doctor  himself  was  getting  home  in  a  different  way.  This 
was  by  means  of  a  tram,  the  rude  car  of  which  seated  six 


94  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

persons,  three  on  each  side,  facing  outward  and  back  to  back, 
but  with  Korean  coolies  for  their  motive  power — thus  reviving, 
of  course,  in  new  form  the  time-worn  joke  about  the  Far 
East's  "Pullman  car."  As  to  the  position  and  significance 
of  the  group  of  buildings,  in  one  of  which  we  were  to  be 
entertained  for  nearly  a  week,  I  avail  myself  of  the  description 
in  the  Seoul  Press,  published  subsequently  by  its  editor  who 
was  the  Japanese  friend  and  companion  of  this  trip.  "As 
his  railway  train  approaches  the  city,  the  first  objects  that 
catch  his  eyes  are  a  cluster  of  buildings,  some  in  foreign  style, 
others  in  half  foreign  and  half  Korean  style,  which  crown  the 
hill-tops  and  constitute  the  most  conspicuous  feature  of  the 
magnificent  landscape  that  developes  itself  before  his  eyes. 
His  wonder  increases  still  more,  as  the  visitor  inquires  into 
the  result  of  the  great  missionary  activity  of  which  these 
buildings  are  outward  manifestations.  How  great  the  success 
has  been  may  be  imagined,  when  it  is  computed  by  a  very 
competent  authority  that  fully  one-third  of  the  entire  Korean 
population  of  the  city  (roughly  estimated  at  between  40,000 
and  50,000)  are  professing  Christians.  There  are  Koreans 
and  Japanese,  apparently  in  a  position  to  know,  who  put  the 
proportion  of  the  Christian  section  of  the  population  at  much 
higher  figures;  they  confidently  say  that  quite  one-half  of 
the  whole  population  belongs  to  the  new  faith.  .  .  .  The 
success  which  the  work  of  Christian  propagandism  has  at- 
tained in  Pyeng-yang  is  all  the  more  marvellous  when  it  is 
remembered  that  the  work  was  commenced  scarcely  more  than 
fifteen  years  ago.  The  success  of  the  work  has  not  been 
confined  to  the  city. alone;  it  is  noticeable,  though  not  quite 
in  like  degree,  in  the  adjacent  districts  and  all  over  North 
Korea  which  looks  up  to  Pyeng-yang  as  the  fountain  and 
centre  of  the  new  religious  life." 

On  the  following  day,  which  was  Saturday,  I  had  my  first 
experience  with  one  of  the  larger  Korean  audiences.    The, 


A  VISIT   TO   PYENG-YANG  95 

numbers  in  Seoul  had  been,  at  most,  some  500  or  600. 
But  here,  although  the  address  was  in  the  afternoon,  no 
fewer  than  1,700,  all,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  foreign 
ladies,  of  the  male  sex,  assembled  in  the  Methodist  meeting- 
house which  was  just  across  a  narrow  lane  from  the  gate  of 
Dr.  Noble's  residence.  The  peculiarities  of  such  an  audi- 
ence are  worthy  of  a  brief  description.  All  were  seated  on 
the  floor.  Close  around  the  platform,  on  which  were  a  few 
of  the  missionaries  and  of  the  Japanese  officials,  were  grouped 
several  hundred  school-boys,  packed  as  thickly  as  herrings 
in  a  box.  These  were  dressed  in  garments  of  many  and 
bright  colors.  Back  of  them  and  reaching  to  the  doors, 
massed  solidly  with  no  aisles  or  empty  spaces  left  between, 
were  Korean  men,  in  their  picturesque  monotone  of  white 
clothing  and  black  crinoline  hats.  The  audiences  at  Pyeng- 
yang,  as  at  Seoul,  were  much  more  restless  and  seemingly 
volatile  than  those  of  the  same  size  which  I  had  addressed  in 
Japan ;  although  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  latter  were 
chiefly  composed  of  teachers,  officials,  and  men  prominent 
in  business  and  in  the  professions,  whereas  this  audience, 
although  largely  Christian,  was  of  the  lowly  and  compara- 
tively ignorant.  A  distinctly  religious  character  was-  given 
to  all  the  meetings  in  Pyeng-yang  by  prayer  and  by  the  sing- 
ing of  Christian  hymns.  The  tunes  were  familiar;  and  al- 
though the  language  wa?  far  removed  in^structure  and 
vocabulary,  the  attempt  had  evidently  been  made,  with  only 
a  partial  success,  to  reproduce  in  a  rhythmic  way  the  English 
words  which  had  been  set  to  them.  The  singing  was  led  by 
a  Korean  chorister  who  used  his  baton  in  a  vigorous  and 
fairly  effective,  if  not  wholly  intelligent,  fashion.  The  cabinet 
organ  was  also  played  by  a  young  Korean  man.  The  mis- 
sionaries say  that  the  people  show  great  interest  and  even 
enthusiasm  in  learning  foreign  music;  and  that  they  are  apt 
pupils  so  far  as  the  singing  of  hymns  is  concerned.  The 


96  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

favorite  native  music  is  a  dismal  wailing  upon  pipes  and 
rude  flute-like  instruments,  accompanied  by  the  tom-tom  of 
drums.  The  address  on  this  occasion  was  upon  the  relation 
of  education  to  the  social  welfare;  it  was  interpreted  by  Dr. 
Noble  with  obvious  clearness  and  vigor. 

The  audience  next  morning  (Sunday,  April  7th)  was  not 
so  large,  but  was  scarcely  less  interesting.  It  comprised  both 
sexes,  separated,  however,  by  a  tight  screen  which  ran  from 
the  platform  through  the  middle  of  the  church  to  the  oppo- 
site wall.  The  numbers  present  were  some  1,400,  about 
equally  divided  between  the  two  sexes.  The  girls  on  the  one 
side,  and  the  boys  on  the  other,  in  their  gaily  colored  clothing, 
were  massed  about  the  platform;  and  back  of  them  the 
women  and  the  men — both  in  white,  but  the  former  topped 
out  with  white  turbans  and  the  latter  with  their  black  hats. 
The  entire  audience  marked  out  upon  the  floor  an  impressive 
color-scheme.  It  was  said  that  there  were  enough  of  the 
population  of  the  city  attending  Christian  services  at  that 
same  hour  to  make  three  congregations  of  the  same  size. 
The  afternoon  gathering  for  Bible  study  and  the  evening 
services  were  even  more  crowded;  so  that  the  aggregate 
number  of  church-goers  that  Sunday  in  this  Korean  city  of 
somewhat  more  than  40,000  could  not  have  been  less  than 
13,000  or  14,000  souls.  Considering  also  the  fact  that  each 
service  was  stretched  out  to  the  minimum  length  of  two 
hours,  there  was  probably  no  place  in  the  United  States  tha.t 
could  compete  with  Pyeng-yang  for  its  percentage  of  church- 
goers on  that  day.  Yet  ten  years  ago  there  was  in  all  the 
region  scarcely  the  beginning  of  a  Christian  congregation. 

In  the  afternoon  I  spoke  to  about  thirty  of  the  mission- 
aries, telling  them,  in  informal  address,  of  certain  economic, 
social,  and  religious  changes  in  the  United  States,  which 
seemed  to  me  destined  profoundly  to  affect  the  nature  of 
Christian  missions  in  so-called  "  heathen  lands."  Nor  did 


A  VISIT  TO   PYENG-YANG  97 

it  seem  incongruous  when  prayer  was  offered  that  the  "home 
land"  might  receive  in  its  present  great  need  some  of  the 
blessings  which  were  being  experienced  in  heathen  Korea. 
For  I  had  long  been  of  the  opinion  that  if  the  word  "heathen" 
is  to  be  used  with  that  tinge  of  moral  and  intellectual  oppro- 
bium  which  usually  attaches  to  it,  all  so-called  Christian 
countries  are  in  some  important  respects  very  considerably 
entitled  to  the  term.  And,  indeed,  who  that  understands  the 
true  spirit  of  the  religion  of  Christ  shall  hesitate  to  confess 
that  America  and  American  churches  as  sorely  need  deliver- 
ance from  the  demons  of  cowardice,  avarice,  and  pride,  as  do 
the  Koreans  from  the  superstitious  fear  of  devils  or  of  the 
spirits  of  their  own  ancestors? 

The  audience  of  Monday  morning  numbered  800;  it 
seemed,  however,  from  the  point  of  view  which  regards  social 
and  political  standing,  to  be  of  decidedly  superior  quality. 
This  was  probably  due,  in  part  at  least,  to  the  nature  of 
the  theme,  which  was — "Education  and  the  Stability  and 
Progress  of  the  Nation."  The  attention,  too,  appeared  to 
be  more  thoughtful  and  unwavering  at  this  meeting. 

The  public  speaking  at  Pyeng-yang  was  concluded  by  an 
address,  especially  designed  for  the  Japanese  official  classes 
and  prominent  business  men,  and  given  in  the  hall  of  the 
Japanese  Club  on  the  afternoon  of  the  day  before  leaving 
the  city.  There  were  present  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
of  this  class  of  hearers.  To  them  I  spoke  very  plainly, 
praising  their  preparation  for,  and  conduct  of,  the  war  with 
Russia;  then  warning  them  of  the  difficulties  and  dangers  in 
business  and  politics  which  the  rivalries  of  peace  would  com- 
pel the  nation  to  face;  and,  finally,  exhorting  them  to  main- 
tain the  honor  of  Japan  in  Korea,  before  the  civilized  world, 
by  treating  the  Koreans  in  an  honorable  way.  Although, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  the  Japanese  friend  who  inter- 
preted this  address,  there  were  uneasy  consciences  in  the 


98  IN  KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

audience,  the  warning  and  the  rebuke,  as  well  as  the  praise, 
were  received  with  equal  appreciation  and  gratitude.  I  take 
this  opportunity  to  testify  that,  instead  of  deserving  the  repu- 
tation often  given  to  the  Japanese,  of  being  abnormally  and 
even  ridiculously  sensitive  to  criticism,  I  have  found  them, 
on  the  contrary,  remarkably  willing  to  be  told  of  their  failures 
and  faults,  and  ready  to  receive,  at  least  with  the  appearance 
of  respect  and  kindness,  suggestions  for  their  correction  and 
amendment. 

My  engagements  in  Pyeng-yang  came  so  near  to  the  limit 
of  exhausting  my  time  and  strength  that  I  was  unable  to  see 
as  much  as  would  have  been  otherwise  desirable  of  the 
externals,  and  of  the  antiquities,  of  the  neighborhood.  From 
the  piazza  in  front  of  our  host's  house  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
Korean  city  lies  literally  spread  out,  as  all  the  cities  of  the 
country  are,  beneath  the  jeye  of  the  observer  from  a  sur- 
rounding hill.  The  streets  within  the  walls  are,  with  one 
or  two  exceptions,  narrow,  winding,  and  made  disgusting  by 
foul  sights  and  smells.  Here  there  has  been  little  or  none 
of  that  widening  of  thoroughfares  and  superficial  cleaning 
which  has  given  a  partial  relief,  both  to  the  aspect  and  to 
the  reality  of  Seoul.  But,  as  has  already  been  said,  the 
natural  situation  is  beautiful.  Under  the  advice  of  Japan,  a 
part  of  the  now  useless  city  wall  went  to  make  a  fine  bund; 
while  the  space  left  by  the  clearing  was  converted  into  a 
street.  On  passing  through  an  indescribably  foul,  narrow 
lane,  which  makes  a  disgraceful  break  between  the  broad, 
clean  thoroughfare  of  the  Japanese  settlement  and  the 
fairly  broad  but  dirty  street  of  the  Korean  city,  we  were 
told  the  following  story  of  the  recent  attempt  of  the  Resi- 
dent to  get  this  passage  widened.  The  story  is  so  charac- 
teristic of  relations  between  the  two  peoples  that  I  turn  aside 
to  tell  it. 

Feeling  the  great  and  obvious  importance  of  having  this 


A  VISIT  TO   PYENG-YANG  99 

public  improvement  made,  the  Resident  called  a  meeting  of 
the  adjoining  property-owners  to  discuss  the  terms  which 
would  be  satisfactory  to  them.  The  Japanese  owners  agreed 
to  contribute  the  land  necessary  for  the  purpose  and  to  move 
back  the  buildings  at  their  own  expense;  the  Korean  owners 
agreed  to  cede  the  land  if  the  expense  of  moving  the  buildings 
was  borne  by  the  Government.  The  Resident  went  for  a 
few  weeks  to  Japan,  expecting  that  the  agreement  would 
stand,  and  that  by  his  return  the  improvement  would  be 
well  begun.  Immediately  after  his  departure,  however,  two 
Korean  Christians,  who  had  remained  away  from  the  meeting 
for  discussing  terms,  induced  the  other  Koreans  to  break 
their  compact  and  refuse  to  surrender  the  land  for  less  than 
200  yen  per  tsubo  (6x6  ft.) — an  absurdly  extravagant  price. 
The  attempt  at  doing  this  much-needed  work  came,  there- 
fore, to  a  complete  standstill.  The  whole  transaction  was 
reported  by  the  Korean  Daily  News  of  Seoul  with  its  cus- 
tomary felicitous  (?)  misrepresentation,  as  follows:  "People 
in  Pyeng-yang  are  greatly  stirred  up  over  the  demand  of  the 
Japanese  that  the  Korean  houses  on  each  side  of  the  road 
outside  the  South  Gate  be  torn  down  to  widen  the  road.  The 
people  gathered  at  the  office  of  the  prefect  arid  protested 
against  such  seizure  without  proper  compensation,  and  they 
said  they  would  die  sooner  than  give  in  to  such  an  imposi- 
tion." I  can  assure  the  reader  that  much  of  the  fraud  and 
oppression  charged  against  the  Japanese  by  the  Koreans 
and  by  their  so-called  "foreign  friends"  (even  including 
some  of  the  missionaries)  is  of  the  same  order.  [A  letter 
from  Pyeng-yang  to  the  Seoul  Press,  published  not  long  after 
our  return,  announced  that  the  "widening  of  the  approach 
between  the  Japanese  city  and  the  old  town,  of  Pyeng-yang 
is  now  under  way,  and  soon  a  fine  wide  road  will  lead  from 
the  railway  station  to  the  Gate" — all  of  which  means  that 
when  the  Korean  property-owners  found  their  attempts  at 


ioo  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

lying  and  swindling  were  not  going  to  succeed,  they  saw  the 
advantage  of  renewing  the  original  contract.] 

A  row  up  the  river  in  his  boat,  kindly  furnished  by  Mr. 
Kikuchi,  the  Japanese  Resident,  afforded  several  pleasant 
hours  of  recreation  as  well  as  an  opportunity  to  see  for  our- 
selves something  more  of  the  present  condition  and  future 
prospects  of  the  chief  city  of  Northern  Korea.  The  city 
gate  through  which  we  reached  the  river  is  the  finest  thing 
about  its  ancient  fortifications.  The  views  of  the  bank,  which 
rises  in  most  places  bluff  and  high  above  the  water,  are  very 
picturesque  and  crowded  with  scenes  of  both  immediate  and 
historical  interest.  Scores,  of  junks  and  sampans,  .loaded 
with  many  kinds  of  goods — for  the  most  part,  however,  of  no 
great  value — are  either  moored  to  the  narrow  beach  below 
the  bank  or  are  slowly  finding  their  way  up  and  down  the 
river.  At  different  heights  of  the  banks,  standing  on  pro- 
jecting ledges  or  on  platforms,  men  were  cutting  inscriptions 
upon  the  rocky  sides  in  Chinese  characters.  These  were 
designed  to  celebrate  for  future  generations  the  virtues  and 
successes  of  living  merchants  and  magistrates;  but  these 
workmen  of  to-day  were  only  adding  a  few  more  to  the  much 
more  numerous  inscriptions  commemorating  the  otherwise 
forgotten  and,  for  the  most  part  undoubtedly,  really  ignoble" 
dead.  By  the  brink  of  the  river  were  the  Korean  women  at 
their  never-ceasing  task  of  washing  and  pounding  dry  the 
white  clothing  of  their  male  lords.  At  one  bend  in  the  river, 
where  the  projecting  cliff  acts  as  an  effective  breakwater 
against  the  winter  ice  and  the  summer  freshets,  the  top  is 
crowned  by  a  pavilion  which  occupies  the  place  where  nego- 
tiations went  on  between  the  Chinese  and  the  Japanese  at  the 
time  of  the  Hideyoshi  invasion. 

The  boat  landed  us  at  the  foot  of  the  celebrated  "  Peony 
Hill,"  part  way  up  which  is  situated  the  decayed  pavilion  in 
which  royalty  used  to  be  fed  and  given  to  drink  on  the  occa- 


A  VISIT  TO   PYENG-YAko  101 

sion  of  excursions  from  the  city  to  this  sightly  place.  From 
this  point  the  views  bring  the  past  history  and  the  present 
prospects  of  Pyeng-yang  together  in  an  interesting  way. 
For,  looking  to  the  right,  one  sees  an  ancient  pagoda  and  the 
remains  of  a  Buddhist  temple.  Looking  forward  and  down- 
ward, the  eye  is  well  pleased  by  taking  in  at  once  the  pleasant 
prospect  of  water  and  rock  and  fields  which  the  ascent  has 
given  only  bit  by  bit,  as  it  were.  Looking  upward  one  sees 
the  difficult  heights  which  the  Japanese  troops  stormed  so 
unexpectedly  but  successfully  in  the  invasion  of  more  than 
three  centuries  ago;  and  also  in  the  war  with  China,  when 
they  turned  the  guns  of  the  Chinese  forces  from  their  own 
fortifications  upon  themselves  and  slaughtered  the  unfor- 
tunate until  the  streets  of  the  city  were  choked  with  corpses. 
But  to  the  left,  and  lying  just  below,  is  the  green  island  on 
which  the  pumping-works  to  supply  the  foul  city  with  cleans- 
ing streams  are  soon  to  be  erected.  Beyond  the  island  across 
the  river  are  the  pastures,  where  the  breeding  of  improved 
horses  is  to  be  carried  on  by  a  partnership  of  both  govern- 
ments; and  still  further  beyond  are  the  coal  fields  which  the 
Residency- General  is  trying  to  preserve  for  the  Crown  against 
the  efforts  of  both  native  and  foreign  promoters,  to  exploit 
them  to  their  own  rather  than  to  the  nation's  advantage. 
But  the  story  of  these  and  similar  efforts  will  be  told  in  other 
places  of  our  narrative;  and  for  the  moment  we  will  forget 
the  interests  of  history  and  of  present  adventures,  and  will 
just  thoughtlessly  submit  ourselves  to  the  pleasure  of  being 
rowed  down  the  beautiful  river  to  the  dirty  and  seditious  city. 
For  it  is  a  story  of  a  nearly  successful  attempt  at  a  seditious 
outbreak  which  would  have  had  a  most  unfortunate  and 
surely  unsuccessful  ending,  that  must  now  engage  the  atten- 
tion. This  story  also,  illustrates  the  Korean  character,  the 
Korean  situation,  and  the  relations  of  the  two  peoples,  in  no 
doubtful  way. 


rio2        '  IN*i:6k£A   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

The  evening  before,  on  Tuesday,  April  gih,  a  committee 
of  students  from  the  missionary  theological  school  had 
requested  an  interview  with  me  on  the  following  day;  and 
the  morning  hour  of  eight  o'clock  had  been  appointed.  At 
the  time  set  they  arrived — three  in  number — and  the  inter- 
view was  held  in  Dr.  Noble's  study  or  "  work-shop."  My 
visitors  began,  Korean  fashion,  far  off  from  their  final  goal, 
and  meandered  around  it  rather  than  toward  it,  like  poachers 
feeling  their  way  in  the  dark.  An  awkward  pause  was  finally 
broken  by  my  exhorting  them  to  speak  plainly  and  freely ; 
at  which  they  replied  that  their  country's  condition  was  much 
misunderstood  and  that  it  was  hoped  that  I  would  under- 
stand and  sympathize  with  them.  Of  my  desire  to  do  this 
I  at  once  assured  them;  but  when  the  request  seemed  to  be 
taking  a  more  political  turn,  I  replied  that  my  interests, 
influence,  and  work,  were  all  directed  along  the  lines  of 
morals,  education,  and  religion.  As  a  teacher,  it  was  only 
as  my  teaching  could  get  a  hearing  and  have  an  influence 
on  life,  that  my  stay  in  Korea  could  benefit  the  Koreans 
themselves.  At  the  same  time,  I  could  assure  them  of  my 
confidence  in  Marquis  Ito's  intention  to  administer  his  office 
in  the  interests  of  their  countrymen. 

During  all  this  conversation  there  was  the  appearance,  in 
general  characteristic  of  all  similar  interviews  between  natives 
and  foreigners,  of  a  mixture  of  suspicion  and  duplicity  which 
is  well  calculated  to  betray  the  unwary  into  serious  mistakes. 
Certainly,  the  real  motive  for  their  coming  was  being  kept 
back;  the  suppressed  undercurrent  of  feeling  that  could  be 
detected  was  such  as  by  no  means  to  encourage  the  confidence 
that  the  feeling  of  race-hatred  had  been  thoroughly  purged 
away  from  these  theological  students  by  the  meeting  for 
prayer  and  confession  of  the  night  before.  But  just  as  I  was 
obliged  to  excuse  myself  in  order  to  keep  another  engagement 
the  true  cause  of  their  request  for  an  interview  suddenly 


A   VISIT   TO    PYENG-YANG  103 

sprang  into  the  light.  All  the  night  before,  they  said,  the 
Korean  city  of  Pyeng-yang  had  been  in  a  state  of  the  most 
intense  excitement  over  the  report  from  Seoul  that  their 
Emperor  was  going  to  be  deposed  by  the  Japanese!  There 
was  just  then  only  time  for  me  to  learn  from  my  Japanese 
companion  that  he  had  not  the  slightest  suspicion  of  how  the 
report,  even,  could  have  originated,  and  to  send  word  to  this 
committee  of  interviewers  that  neither  he  nor  I  gave  the 
slightest  credence  to  so  absurd  a  rumor. 

But  this  matter  did  not  end  with  a  single  interview  con- 
ducted by  the  deputation  of  Christian  students.  Word  had 
previously  been  sent  that  the  Korean  governor  of  Pyeng-yang 
desired  to  call  upon  me,  and  the  promise  had  been  made  that 
he  should  be  received  in  appropriate  manner  at  noon  of  the 
same  day.  Soon  after  our  return  from  the  trip  up  the  river, 
His  Excellency  appeared,  accompanied  by  his  secretary  and 
by  one  of  the  committee  of  the  morning  who  acted  also  as 
spokesman  of  this  second  deputation.  For  such  it  really  was, 
rather  than  a  merely  friendly  call  from  the  chief  native 
magistrate  of  the  city.  The  Governor  seemed  exceedingly 
ill  at  ease;  there  was  in  even  greater  degree  than  had  been 
the  case  with  my  visitors  of  the  early  morning,  an  appearance 
of  mingled  suspicion  and  suppressed  excitement,  of  fear  and 
of  hatred.  In  this  case,  however,  the  real  matter  of  concern- 
ment did  not  come  at  all  to  the  fore.  The  conversation  ended 
when  there  had  been  repeated  declarations  of  my  visitor's 
interest  in  the  improvement  of  education  among  his  own 
countrymen,  to  which  I  had  replied  that  I  believed  this  to  be 
the  important  work  which  should  occupy  all  Korean  patriots 
and  all  the  wise  and  true  foreign  friends  of  Korea. 

It  afterward  came  to  my  knowledge  that  the  Governor, 
although  not  himself  a  Christian,  on  leaving  the  house,  went 
with  his  secretary  and  the  theological  student  into  the  ad- 
joining church  of  the  Methodist  mission,  and  there  fell  upon 


io4  IN   KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

his  face  and  began  to  beat  his  forehead  on  the  floor  and 
bewail  the  threatening  situation  for  himself  as  the  responsible 
magistrate,  and  the  sad  fate  awaiting  his  country  at  the  hands 
of  the  Japanese.  The  thought  of  the  enormous  interval 
between  this  conduct  and  that  of  any  Japanese  official, 
similarly  situated,  remains  with  me  to  reveal  in  vivid  colors 
the  difference  of  the  two  peoples.  But  all  this  was  only  in 
the  small,  essentially  the  same  thing  which  has  been  going  on 
in  the  large,  throughout  the  centuries  of  Korean  history. 

On  my  return  from  the  address  to  the  Japanese  I  was 
almost  immediately  visited  by  a  third  deputation  which  con- 
sisted of  the  same  theological  student  who  had  called  twice 
before  on  this  same  day,  and  of  two  others  whom  I  did  not 
recognize.  This  time  also  the  conversation  began  in  similar 
roundabout  fashion;  indeed,  this  time  the  point  of  starting 
was  even  more  remote  in  character  from  the  real  end  which 
it  was  intended  to  reach.  There  was  a  preliminary  recital 
of  their  country's  weakness,  poverty,  and  need  of  foreign 
assistance;  this  was  accompanied  by  the  suggestion  that 
possibly  I  might  have  some  rich  friend  willing  to  contribute 
liberally  to  their  mission  school,  or  to  the  much  needed  en- 
largement of  the  church  edifice.  Again,  the  visitors  were 
assured  of  my  deep  interest  in  the  welfare  of  Korea  and  of  my 
sincere  desire  to  do  what  lay  within  my  power  to  promote 
this  welfare.  It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  I  my- 
self belonged  to  the  class  of  teachers  who,  even  in  rich 
America,  have  little  wealth  at  their  disposal.  To  the  best 
of  my  knowledge,  I  had  not  a  single  friend  among  the  Amer- 
ican millionaires.  Should  it  ever  be  possible,  however, 
nothing  would  be  more  to  my  mind  than  to  direct  some  of 
the  overflow  of  my  country's  wealth  into  the  channels  of 
educational  and  religious  work  in  needy  Korea.  I  was  sin- 
cerely impressed  with  the  need  and  with  the  opportunity. 

Now,  plainly,  all  this  was  not  at  all  to  the  point  of  the 


A   VISIT   TO   PYENG-YANG  105 

interest  weighing  upon  the  minds  of  my  auditors.  Suddenly, 
and  in  a  startling  manner,  the  real  cause  of  the  three  formal 
visits  from  as  many  different  deputations,  made  itself  known. 
With  lips  white  and  trembling,  the  same  theological  student 
who  had  been  present  at  each  visit,  drew  from  his  sleeve  an 
envelope,  and  from  the  envelope  a  document  printed  in  mixed 
Chinese  and  Korean,  the  purport  of  which  he  began  to  ex- 
plain to  my  interpreter  in  a  highly  excited  and  rhetorical  way. 
This  document  purported  to  be  an  elaborate  statement  of 
no  fewer  than  forty-eight  reasons  why  Japan  should  annex 
Korea  and  reduce  its  Emperor  to  the  grade  of  a  peer  of 
Japan.  "Where  did  this  remarkable  pronunciamento  come 
from?"  was,  of  course,  my  first  inquiry.  Why,  from  Seoul, 
from  the  Court;  but  it  was  originally  a  production  of  the 
Japanese  Government  which,  fortunately,  had  been  discov- 
ered in  time  and  which  was  now  officially  sent  out  in  order 
to  .warn  all  Korean  patriots  against  this  outrageous  plot 
concocted  by  the  Japanese! 

The  situation  was  obviously  serious,  if  not  threatening. 
On  inquiry  it  was  soon  disclosed  that  for  two  days  and  nights 
the  entire  native  city  of  Pyeng-yang  had  been  in  such  a  state 
of  excitement  as  is  not  easily  made  credible  to  citizens  of  a 
country  accustomed  to  the  exercise  of  sound  political  sense 
and  self-control.  No  business  had  been  done,  no  buying  or 
selling,  on  the  last  market  day.  All  night  long  the  men  and 
women  of  the  city  had  been  sleepless  and  engaged  in  wailing 
and  beating  the  ground  and  the  floor  of  their  houses  with  their 
heads.  Not  a  few  of  the  worst  classes — including,  I  fear, 
some  professing  Christians — had  been  working  themselves 
and  others  up  to  threats  of  violence  and  of  murder. 

The  silliness  of  mind,  the  almost  hopeless  and  incurable 
credulity  and  absence  of  sound  judgment  which  characterizes, 
with  exceedingly  few  exceptions,  the  political  views  and 
actions  of  even  the  official  and  educated  classes  in  Korea,  was 


106          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  1TO 

the  impression  made  upon  me  by  this,  as  by  all  my  experiences 
during  my  stay  in  the  land.  I  assured  these  visitors,  however, 
that  there  could  be  no  doubt  about  this  document  being  a 
forgery— as,  indeed,  it  turned  out  to  be.  Marquis  Ito  and 
the  Japanese  Government  had  no  such  immediate  intention; 
and,  indeed,  if  the  Resident- General  entertained  the  thought, 
he  surely  was  not  foolish  enough  to  proceed  in  any  such  way. 
Such  childish  behavior  on  their  own  part,  I  added,  was  very 
discouraging  to  their  friends.  What  could  be  done  by  others 
for  a  country  where  the  men  who  should  be  leaders  behaved 
habitually  in  a  so  unmanly  way  ?  Let  them  quiet  themselves, 
tell  their  Governor  what  I  had  said,  and  bid  him  use  all 
his  authority  to  quiet  their  fellow-citizens.  This  advice  was 
complied  with,  as  the  event  showed;  the  Korean  governor 
was  reassured  and  promised  to  unite  his  influence  with  that 
of  the  Christian  forces  to  secure  a  return  of  the  populace  to 
their  normal  quiet.  It  was  gratifying  afterwards  to  have 
this  official's  expression  of  gratitude  for  what  was  then  done 
to  assist  in  the  peace-promoting  administration  of  his  office. 
Dr.  Noble,  at  once  upon  the  departure  of  this  committee, 
gave  orders  that  the  church  bell  should  be  rung  to  assemble 
the  Christian  community;  and  in  such  manner  as  to  indicate 
to  them  that  they  were  called  together  to  hear  "good  news." 
An  hour  later,  when  we  were  going  down  the  hill  to  dine  with 
the  Japanese  Resident,  the  people  had  not  yet  assembled;  but 
on  our  return  in  the  evening  they  were  departing  to  their 
homes,  quieted  by  two  hours  of  opportunity  to  express  their 
excited  feeling  in  the  Korean  fashion  of  wailing,  sobbing,  and 
beating  their  foreheads  upon  the  mats — assisted  by  the  com- 
forting and  reassuring  words  of  those  to  whom  they  looked 
as  having  knowledge  and  authority.  It  afterward  transpired1 

1  This  document  probably  emanated  from  the  same  press  in  Seoul — 
conducted  by  a  subject  of  Japan's  friendly  ally,  Great  Britain — from 
which  came  the  lying  bulletin  that  afterward  caused  so  much  bloodshed 


A   VISIT   TO   PYENG-YANG  107 

that  a  young  Korean,  one  An  Chung-ho,  who  had  become 
by  foreign  residence  injected,  rather  than  instructed,  with 
certain  so-called  "modern  ideas,"  had  busied  himself,  as  the 
agent  of  the  seditious  intriguers  at  Seoul,  in  distributing  this 
forged  document  and  in  haranguing  the  people  with  a  view 
to  excite  a  popular  uprising  against  the  Japanese.  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  the  document  itself  was  not  printed  in 
Japan.  But  the  next  morning's  sunlight  saw  the  mist  and 
the  threatening  storm-cloud  cleared  away. 

It  was  during  this  visit  to  Pyeng-yang  that  I  saw  something 
of  the  remarkable  features  of  the  religious  movement  which 
was  most  intense  there,  but  which  spread,  during  the  winter 
of  1 906-^07,  widely  over  Korea.  The  "revival"  began — and, 
indeed,  as  regards  its  principal  immediate  results,  it  consisted 
largely — in  the  irresistible  tendency  to  confession,  contrition, 
and  prayer  for  forgiveness,  among  Christians  themselves. 
The  confessions,  while  in  general  they  embraced  such  familiar 
topics  as  pride,  envy,  unfaithfulness,  and  coldness  in  the 
Christian  life,  very  naturally  soon  revealed  the  characteristic 
vices  and  weaknesses  of  the  Korean  character.  Taken  at 
their  own  estimate,  and  making  all  reasonable  allowances  for 
the  exaggerations  of  temporary  excitement,  they  made  obvious 
the  fact  that  lying,  stealing,  cheating,  and  impurity,  had  been 
nearly  universal  in  the  hitherto  existing  Christian  communities 
of  Korea.  In  many  cases  these  "spiritual  exercises"  were 
accompanied  by  the  most  violent  physical  demonstrations, 
such  as  sobbing,  wailing,  beating  the  forehead  on  the  floor, 
and  even  falling  down  unconscious  and  frothing  at  the  mouth. 

A  more  graphic  picture  of  these  religious  meetings  can  per- 
haps be  obtained  by  a  brief  description  of  one  which  I  at- 

on  the  morning  of  Friday,  July  i9th.  It  is  a  comfort  to  know  that  this 
same  editor  has  since  been  indicted  by  his  own  Government  for  the 
crime  of  stirring  up  sedition,  condemned  to  give  bonds,  and  threatened 
with  deportation  if  his  offences  are  repeated. 


io8  IN  KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS  ITO 

tended,  where,  however,  the  demonstrations  were  all  of  a 
relatively  mild  order.  This  was  the  evening  gathering  of  the 
theological  students  on  a  day  during  the  whole  of  which  they 
had  been  holding  a  series  of  similar  gatherings.  As  we 
arrived  in  front  of  the  building  in  which  the  meeting  was  held, 
there  pierced  the  silent  night  air  a  voice  of  wailing  rather  than 
of  articulate  speaking,  in  a  high-pitched  key  and  with  extreme 
rapidity  of  utterance.  On  entering,  some  sixty  Korean  men 
appeared,  seated  on  the  floor  with  their  heads  bowed  in  their 
hands;  three  or  four  missionaries  were  occupying  a  bench 
which  ran  across  one  end  of  the  room.  At  the  other  end  stood 
one  of  the  students  swaying  back  and  forth;  it  was  his  con- 
fession of  sin  that  we  had  heard  while  still  outside.  Precisely 
what  the  confession  was,  there  was  no  opportunity  to  learn; 
for  after  speaking  a  few  sentences  more,  with  ever  increasing 
rapidity  and  shrillness  of  tone,  the  speaker  fell  to  the  floor 
sobbing  and  moaning  convulsively  and  began  beating  the 
mats  with  fists  and  with  forehead.  One  of  the  missionaries 
stepped  carefully  between  the  stooping  bodies  of  his  com- 
rades, found  his  way  to  the  prostrate  sinner,  and  by  words 
and  gentle  blows  upon  the  back  attempted  to  revive  and 
comfort  him. 

Then  followed  a  series  of  similar  confessions,  interspersed 
with  prayers  for  forgiveness,  none  of  which,  however,  at- 
tained the  same  degree  of  vehemence  and  physical  excess. 
The  substance  of  sins  confessed  by  these  Korean  students  of 
divinity  was  most  illuminating.  The  next  penitent  wished 
it  to  be  known  that  he  had  broken  all  the  commandments; 
although  it  appeared  that  this  far  limit  had  been  reached 
before  his  profession  of  Christianity,  and  that  he  had  been 
guilty  of  murder  rather  in  the  spirit  than  in  fact.  Various 
following  narratives  of  experience,  made  with  varying  de- 
grees of  emotional  excitement,  included  forms  of  wrong- 
doing common  to  most  church  members  in  all  countries, 


A  VISIT  TO   PYENG-YANG  .      109 

such  as  pride,  envy,  deceit,  infidelity,  and  impurity  of  thought, 
if  not  of  life.  But  the  climax  was  fairly  reached  when  one 
man  of  early  middle-age  arose,  and  in  a  markedly  unemo- 
tional way  asserted  that,  although  he  had  formerly  resisted 
all  efforts  to  make  him  tell  the  truth  as  to  his  real  manner 
of  living,  he  now  felt  that  the  time  had  come  when  this 
painful  duty  could  no  longer  be  postponed.  How  to  repent, 
however,  he  did  not  know.  The  story  which  was  told  in 
cold-blooded  fashion  was,  briefly,  as  follows:  Before  pro- 
fessing Christian  conversion  he  had  been  a  wild  fellow,  and 
among  other  crimes  had  twice  set  fire  to  the  houses  of  his 
neighbors.  After  profession  of  conversion  he  had  been  em- 
ployed as  a  colporteur.  In  this  connection  he  had  thrown 
away  or  destroyed  the  books  he  was  paid  to  distribute,  had 
told  his  employer  that  robbers  had  attacked  him  and  stolen 
them,  and  thus  had  collected  his  full  salary.  Still  later  he 
had  renounced  all  pretence  of  Christianity  and  had  himself 
become  a  robber.  His  life  as  a  theological  student  up  to  the 
present  time  had  been  characterized  by  pride,  envy,  and 
constant  secret  hatred  of  those  of  his  fellow-students  who  had 
surpassed  him  in  their  studies. 

Among  the  most  significant  of  the  confessions  were  those 
of  bitter  hatred  of  the  Japanese,  and  even  of  murderous 
thoughts  and  plans  toward  them.  These  wholesome  self- 
accusations  were  in  several  instances  followed  by  earnest  and 
pathetic  petitions — not  only  for  forgiveness  of  themselves, 
but  for  the  Divine  blessing  upon  their  enemies.  [In  this 
connection  it  is  pertinent  to  remark  that,  while  there  has 
undoubtedly  been  much  ill-treatment  of  Koreans  by  Japan- 
ese, I  have  never  known  of  any  of  that  bitter  race-hatred 
toward  the  former  by  the  latter,  which  undoubtedly  at  the 
present  time  permeates  a  large  part  of  the  Korean  popula- 
tion toward  the  Japanese.]  On  being  asked  to  say  a  few 
words  to  these  students,  I  spoke  of  the  unreasonable  and  un- 


no  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

Christian  character  of  race-hatred  and  asked  them  to  put 
from  their  minds  all  such  foolish  and  wicked  feelings.  And 
then,  as  though  to  emphasize  the  beauty  and  brightness  of 
nature  as  con  rasted  with  the  unseemly  and  dark  condi- 
tion of  man,  we  came  out  under  a  sky  as  clear  and  alight 
with  scintillating  stars  as  I  have  ever  seen  in  India  or  in 
Egypt. 

On  our  arrival  at  the  station  of  Pyeng-yang,  to  return  to 
Seoul,  on  the  morning  of  Wednesday,  April  loth,  the  little 
fellows  from  the  Presbyterian  mission-school  were  there 
before  us,  already  in  line  with  Korean  and  American  flags 
flying,  and  with  drums  and  trumpets  making  a  creditable 
noise.  The  appropriate  parting  address  to  this  school  had 
scarcely  been  finished,  when  another  school  appeared  in  the 
distance,  on  the  double-quick  for  the  station,  to  whom,  when 
they  had  got  themselves  into  proper  shape,  Dr.  Noble  re- 
peated the  substance  of  the  words  just  spoken  to  their  com- 
rades earlier  arrived.  Scarcely  was  this  finished,  when,  for 
the  third  time — and  now  it  was  the  pupils  from  the  Con- 
fucian school — a  troop  of  boys  came  scurrying  through  the 
dust,  lined  up,  and  claimed  their  share  of  the  foreign  sahib^ 
parting  salutation  and  advice.  And  then  we  were  slowly 
drawn  out  of  the  station,  and  leaving  behind  on  the  fence 
the  several  hundred  school-children  and  on  the  platform  the 
several  score  of  Korean  Christians  and  of  Japanese  who  had 
come  to  send  us  off,  we  returned  without  further  incident 
to  Seoul. 

The  few  crowded  days  at  Pyeng-yang  appear  in  retrospect 
as  an  epitome  of  Korean  history,  Korean  temperament,  and 
the  physical  and  social  relations  sustained  in  the  past  and  at 
the  present  time  between  Korea  and  Japan.  Improvement 
may  confidently  be  expected  in  the  near  future,  according 
as  the  economical  and  social  forces  are  combined  with  the 
moral  and  the  religious  to  bear  upon  the  population  now 


A  VISIT   TO   PYENG-YANG  in 

adult.  But  the  larger  and  more  permanent  hopes  for  the 
future  depend  upon  the  school-children,  who,  even  to-day, 
are  becoming  more  intelligent,  orderly,  and  self-controlled 
than  their  ancestors  ever  have  been. 


CHAPTER  VI 

CHEMULPO   AND   OTHER   PLACES 

BESIDES  Seoul  and  Pyeng-yang  the  two  most  important 
seaports  of  Korea,  which  are.  Chemulpo  and  Fusan,  were  the 
only  places  in  the  peninsula  where  it  seemed  possible  to  arrange 
for  even  a  single  address.  An  honest  attempt  was  made  by 
a  personal  visit  of  the  foreign  secretary  of  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  to  " negotiate"  an  invitation  from  the 
Koreans  of  Song-do,  the  ancient  capital  under  the  dynasty 
preceding  that  at  present  on  the  throne.  But  Song-do  is 
an  exceedingly  conservative  city,  and  the  family  of  Yun  Chi- 
ho  is  influential  there.  Thus,  even  its  Korean  Christians 
did  not  care  to  hear  addresses  on  matters  of  morals  and 
religion  from  a  guest  of  the  Japanese  Resident-General. 
It  is  well  to  recall  again  in  this  connection  the  fact  that, 
although  Pyeng-yang  has  actually  suffered  more  at  the  hands 
of  Japanese  invaders  than  any  other  city  of  Korea,  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Christian  missionaries  and  their  converts  was  so 
powerful  there  that  the  most  sympathetic  and  crowded 
native  audiences  greeted  the  "friend  of  Japan"  in  that  city. 
There,  too,  in  connection  with  Dr.  Noble,  presiding  elder 
of  the  Methodist  missions  in  all  that  part  of  the  country,  I 
was  able  to  be  of  most  service  to  both  countries  in  a  time  of 
rather  unusual  threatening  and  exigency.  This  fact  con- 
firms the  impression  that,  in  Seoul,  fear  of  the  Court  and 
of  the  Yang-bans  is  cramping  the  work  even  of  the  foreign 
religious  teachers.  But  Chemulpo  and  Fusan  are  the 


CHEMULPO   AND   OTHER   PLACES          113 

places  in  Korea  where  the  two  peoples  have  been  longest 
in  the  compelling  contact  of  common  business  interests. 
Observation  of  results  in  these  places  had,  therefore,  some 
special  value.  The  visit  to  Fusan  came  later,  and  properly 
belongs  to  the  story  of  our  departure  from  Korea.  But  the 
visit  to  Chemulpo  and  its  experiences  may  fitly  be  spoken  of 
in  this  place. 

The  invitation  to  speak  at  Chemulpo  came  from  the  Japan- 
ese Resident  and  from  the  Mayor,  as  official , representatives 
of  the  educational  interests  of  the  city.  The  affair  was,  there- 
fore, conducted  much  more  in  the  familiar  Japanese  style  than 
were  the  invitations  to  speak  in  Seoul  or  Pyeng-yang.  At  the 
same  time,  it  had  been  decided  that  I  was  to  address  a 
Korean  audience  in  Chemulpo,  and  Dr.  Jones  had  consented 
to  make  this  possible  by  the  help  of  his  valuable  skill  in  inter- 
pretation. It  had  been  arranged  that  we  should  meet  him 
and  Mr.  Zumoto,  who  was  to  interpret  the  address  to  the  Jap- 
anese, at  the  South  Gate  station  for  the  11.40  A.M.  express. 
But  as  the  time  of  leaving  approached,  it  appeared  that 
something  was  detaining  the  Doctor;  finally  we  were  obliged 
to  go  on  without  *him.  In  person  he  appeared  at  Chemulpo 
in  the  early  afternoon  and  explained  that  he  had  been  de- 
tained in  order  to  prepare  for  the  funeral  of  one  of  the  native 
members  of  his  church;  several  hours  still  later,  while  we 
were  taking  tea  at  the  Resident's  house,  we  were  handed 
(as  an  example  of  the  despatch  with  which  this  service  is  at 
present  rendered  in  Korea)  the  explanatory  telegram  which 
had  been  sent  in  the  early  morning. 

The  fields  between  Seoul  and  Chemulpo,  on  the  morning 
of  May  6,  1907,  were  beautifully  green,  for  the  spring  rains 
had  been  unusually  abundant  and  the  crops  were  corre- 
spondingly promising.  Combined  with  the  darker  green  of 
the  pines,  and  contrasted  with  the  red  and  yellow  of  the 
sand  and  rocks,  they  gave  back  to  the  eye  that  more  vivid 


ii4  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

but  less  soothing  pleasure  of  the  Korean  landscape  to  which 
reference  has  already  been  so  frequently  made.  Along  this 
line  of  railway,  as  everywhere,  there  is  the  same  impression 
of  undeveloped  agricultural  resources;  there  is  also  the  same 
temptation  to  imagine  how  it  will  all  look  in  the  years  to 
come,  when  Korea  has  been  lifted  out  of  its  low  industrial 
condition. 

At  the  station  we  were  met  by  the  official  deputation  and 
escorted  to  the  Japanese  Club.  The  impression  made  by 
the  streets  through  which  we  passed  was  not  pleasing;  for 
there  had  been  rain,  the  air  was  laden  with  cold  moisture, 
and  the  ground  was  either  rough  or  torn  up  for  repairs  and 
heavy  for  the  jinrikisha  pullers  with  its  coating  of  mud. 
But  it  should  be  remembered  that  this  part  of  Chemulpo  is 
in  the  making,  whereas  the  older  part  had  a  few  weeks  be- 
fore been  swept  by  a  destructive  fire.  The  Chinese  town, 
through  which  we  now  passed,  bore  a  decayed  air;  but 
when  the  Japanese  quarter  was  reached,  in  spite  of  the  recent 
loss  of  some  400  houses,  there  was  a  thrifty  and  prosperous 
look,  an  appearance  of  determination,  of  not-to-mind-what- 
cannot-be-helped,  so  characteristic  of  the  people  themselves. 
The  work  of  rebuilding  this  quarter  was  going  briskly  forward. 

The  population  of  Chemulpo  consisted  at  that  time  of 
some  12,000  Japanese,  from  15,000  to  20,000  Koreans,  and 
about  2,000  Chinese  (before  the  Japan-China  war  the  num- 
ber of  the  Chinese  was  about  5,000).  There  are  less  than 
ico  European  and  American  residents.  It  is  hoped  by  those 
interested  in  the  business  prospects  of  the  city  that,  after 
the  through  all-rail  route  from  Tairen  to  St.  Petersburg  is 
made  in  all  respects  first-class — and  the  consummation  of 
this  project  will  quickly  follow  under  the  management  of 
Baron  Goto  and  the  Russian  authorities,  as  soon  as  the  com- 
mercial treaty  between  Japan  and  Russia  takes  effect — 
Chemulpo  will  be  an  important  port  of  entry  for  the  in- 


CHEMULPO  AND   OTHER  PLACES         115 

creasing  trade  of  Korea.  But  the  harborage  is  now  so  poor 
that  ships  of  any  considerable  size  have  to  lie  far  out  in  the 
offing,  and  the  sand-bars  between  this  anchorage  and  the 
wharfs  are  constantly  forming  and  shifting  their  location. 
This  coast  of  Korea  is  also  made  very  dangerous  by  numerous 
rocky  islands  and  sunken  reefs,  by  variable  and  strong  cur- 
rents, and  by  one  of  the  highest  average  tides  to  be  found 
anywhere  in  the  world.  Plans  for  improving  the  harbor  are, 
therefo  e,  very  important.  Right  in  front  of  the  Chinese 
hotel  where  we  spent  the  night,  the  flats  are  being  filled  in, 
apparently  with  the  double  purpose  of  securing  an  extension 
of  building  lots,  and  also  of  shortening  somewhat  the  distance 
between  the  city  and  the  shipping  at  low  tide.  But  the  per- 
manent improvement  of  the  harbor  of  Chemulpo — and  this 
is  equivalent  to  securing  one  good  port  of  entry  for  the 
entire  western  coast  of  Korea — offers  a  difficult  problem. 
Either  of  the  two  ways  of  solving  the  problem  which  have 
hitherto  been  considered  would  be  exceedingly  expensive. 
To  enclose  a  basin  with  a  sea-wall  and  shut  in  the  tide- 
water by  gates,  or  to  extend  the  wharf  out  some  two  miles 
to  deep  water,  would  cost  many  millions  of  yen. 

After  an  excellent  tiffin  at  the  club,  where  we  met  some 
twenty  Japanese  ladies  and  gentlemen,  I  spoke  to  an  audience 
of  not  more  than  one  hundred  and  fifty — of  this  nationality 
almost  exclusively — but  of  both  sexes.  The  audience  rep- 
resented the  educational  and  official  interests  of  the  city 
which,  as  is  customary  in  Japan  and  elsewhere,  are  not 
paramount  in  places  devoted  to  trade  and  commerce.  Mr. 
Zumoto  interpreted;  the  ethical  and  hortatory  turn  given 
to  the  remarks  made  them,  apparently,  no  less  but  even 
more  heartily  received.  I  have  already  called  attention  to 
the  striking  fact  that  the  thoughtful  Japanese  are  becoming 
more  impressed  with  the  truth  of  the  old-fashioned,  but  not 
as  yet  quite  defunct,  thought  that  it  is,  after  all,  "righteous- 


n6          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

ness  which  exalteth  a  nation."  But  the  Koreans,  as  a 
people,  have  still  to  awake  to  th£  impression  that  either 
science  or  morality  has  any  important  bearing  on  the  ma- 
terial and  social  welfare  of  the  nation's  life.  Following  the 
lecture,  there  was  tea  at  the  Residency  House;  after  which 
we  were  taken  to  one  of  those  curious  but  by  no  means  un- 
comfortable hostleries  which  one  comes  upon  in  the  Far 
East.  It  was  under  the  sign  of  "E.  D.  Steward  &  Co., 
Store .  Keeper .  &  Hotel  and  Ship .  Compradore."  The  name 
" Steward"  was  assumed  by  its  Chinese  owner  because  he 
had  filled  this  office  on  a  small  steamship  for  some  years 
before.  The  advertisement  did  not  at  all  exaggerate  the 
variety  of  enterprises  carried  on  under  the  same  extensive 
roof  by  this  example  of  a  thrifty  race.  In  the  rooms  over  the 
store  the  representative  of  Mr.  "Steward"  (for  we  did  not 
learn  his  true  designation,  either  for  this  life  of  business  or 
his  "heavenly  name")  cared  for  his  guests  as  well  as  could 
reasonably  be  expected. 

Most  of  the  following  morning  was  spent  in  conversation 
with  Mr.  W.  D.  Townsend,  who  has  been  in  Korea  since 
May,  1884,  when  he  arrived  at  Chemulpo  to  open  a  branch 
of  the  "American  Trading  Co."  He  thus  antedates  the 
founding  of  missionary  work  in  Korea,  although  Dr.  R.  S. 
McClay  had  visited  Seoul  in  June,  1883,  to  make  arrange- 
ments for  a  mission;  and  Dr.  Horace  N.  Allen,  who  afterward 
served  as  the  representative  of  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment, reached  Korea  in  the  September  following.  This 
conversation,  continued  on  during  luncheon  at  Mr.  Town- 
send's  house,  gave  me  incidents  and  opinions  illustrating  the 
problem  I  was  studying  as  it  appears  to  a  shrewd  and  ex- 
perienced man  of  business.  Facts  and  opinions  from  this 
point  of  view  were,  I  believed,  no  less  important  and  in- 
forming than  those  to  be  learned  from  the  missionary  or  the 
native  or  foreign  official. 


CHEMULPO   AND   OTHER   PLACES         117 

In  the  afternoon  I  spoke  on  the  "Five  Elements  of  Na- 
tional Prosperity"  to  an  audience  of  about  600  Koreans, 
fully  half  of  whom  were  children,  and  part  of  whom  kept 
coming  and  going.  The  Japanese  Resident,  Mr.  Kenochi, 
was  present.  The  quality  of  the  attention  and  interest  did 
not  seem  to  me  to  reach  the  level  of  the  audiences  in  Seoul; 
but  this  was  only  what  was  to  be  expected  from  the  nature 
of  the  population  and  the  occupations  of  the  Koreans  in 
Chemulpo.  From  the  church  we  had  a  not  unpleasant  walk 
to  the  suburban  station,  accompanied  by  a  number  of  the 
Japanese  gentlemen  and  ladies  who  felt  it  their  official  but 
friendly  duty  to  see  us  off  for  Seoul.  On  reaching  Miss 
Sontag's  house  we  dined  with  the  German  Consul,  Dr.  Ney, 
Mr.  Eckert,  the  skilful  trainer  of  the  Korean  band,  and 
other  German  friends,  on  invitation  of  our  hostess. 

With  reference  to  the  improvements  already  accomplished 
in  Korea,  and  to  a  considerable  extent  through  Japanese 
official  influence  and  unofficial  example,  Mr.  Townsend  called 
my  attention  to  the  following  particulars.  Previous  to  the 
opening  of  the  country  to  foreign  trade  there  was  no  possi- 
bility of  accumulating  wealth  in  Korea.  For,  as  one  of  the 
few  thoughtful  Koreans  had  remarked:  "If  there  was  a 
large  crop  of  rice  and  beans,  there  was  no  one  to  buy  it,  and 
it  would  not  keep  over  for  two  years.  Therefore  we  ate  more 
and  worked  less;  for  what  could  we  do  with  the  surplus  but 
eat  it?  But  when  the  crops  failed,  we  starved  or  died  of 
the  pest  that  followed."  It  so  happened,  in  fact,  that  the  year 
after  the  opening  of  the  country  there  was  a  large  crop;  and 
now  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  Korea,  there  was  not 
only  something  to  sell  but  a  market  for  it.  There  had,  in- 
deed, been  trade  for  centuries  between  the  southern  part  of 
the  country  and  the  adjoining  regions  of  Japan,  especially 
the  island  of  Tsushima.  But  in  this  trade  Korea  parted 
with  its  gold,  out  of  which  the  Japanese  themselves  were 


n8          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

subsequently  cheated  by  the  Dutch,  who  took  it  off  to  Hol- 
land. Thus  neither  of  the  nations  in  the  Far  East  was  en- 
riched in  any  permanent  way;  both  were  the  rather  im- 
poverished as  respects  their  store  of  resources  for  the  future. 

Under  the  Japanese,  Mr.  Townsend  was  confident — as  is 
every  one  acquainted  with  the  past  and  present  conditions — 
that  there  would  soon  be  a  very  considerable  development  of 
the  country's  resources.  This  would  take  place  especially 
in  the  lines  of  silk-culture,  raising  rice  and  beans,  and  graz- 
ing and  dairy  products.  For  all  these  forms  of  material 
prosperity  the  country  was  by  soil  and  climate  admirably 
adapted.  Up  to  this  time  the  rinderpest  had  been  allowed  to 
ravage  the  herds  unchecked.  In  a  single  year  it  had  carried 
off  thousands  of  bullocks,  so  that  the  following  spring  the 
entire  family  of  the  peasants  would  have  to  join  forces — 
men,  women,  and  children — to  pull  their  rude  ploughs 
through  the  stiff  mud.  As  to  the  culture  of  fruit,  the  out- 
look did  not  seem  so  hopeful.  The  market  was  limited; 
the  various  pests  were  unlimited  in  number  of  species  and 
individuals,  and  in  voracity.  A  certain  kind  of  caterpillars 
eat  pine-needles  only;  and  some  gentlemen,  in  order  to 
protect  the  pine-trees  in  their  yards,  were  obliged  to  hire 
Koreans  to  pick  these  pests  off  the  trees,  one  by  one,  by  the 
pailful  at  a  time.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  in  time 
these  difficulties  may  be  overcome  by  the  very  favorable 
character  of  soil  and  climate  for  many  kinds  of  fruits,  by  the 
possibility  of  ridding  the  country  of  the  pests  and  of  im- 
proving the  already  excellent  varieties  of  fruits,  and  by  the 
development  of  the  canning  industry. 

As  to  the  effect  of  the  Japanese  Protectorate  upon  the 
business  of  foreign  firms,  Mr.  Townsend  assured  me  that 
the  honorable  firms  were  pleased  with  it  and  considered  it 
favorable  to  the  extension  of  legitimate  business.  Un- 
scrupulous promoters  do  not,  of  course,  enjoy  being  checked 


CHEMULPO   AND   OTHER   PLACES          119 

by  the  Resident- General  in  their  efforts  to  plunder  the  Korean 
resources.  In  this  conversation  with  Mr.  Townsend  I  learned 
the  details  of  one  of  those  dishonorable  promoting  schemes 
which  have  been,  and  still  are,  the  disgrace  of  some  of  the 
foreign  residents  in  Korea.  But  this  is  not  the  worst  of 
them.  They  become  the  disgrace  of  the  countries  from 
which  the  promoters  come,  so  often  as  the  latter  can  success- 
fully appeal  to  the  consuls  or  other  diplomatic  representa- 
tives of  their  nationals  for  official  support  in  their  nefarious 
schemes. 

The  relations,  both  business  and  social,  between  the 
Japanese  and  the  Koreans  in  Chemulpo  are  now  much 
improved.  Indeed,  there  is  at  present  an  almost  complete 
absence  of  race-hatred  between  the  two.  Formerly,  on  some 
trifling  occasion  of  a  quarrel  started  between  a  Japanese 
and  a  Korean,  an  angry  mob  of  several  hundred  on  each  side 
would  quickly  gather;  and  unless  the  other  foreigners  inter- 
fered in  time,  there  was  sure  to  be  serious  fighting  and  even 
bloodshed .  B ut  the  growing  number  of  those  belonging  to  both 
nations  who  understand  each  other's  language  and  each  other's 
customs  has  almost  entirely  done  away  with  the  tendency 
to  similar  riots.  Indeed,  a  positive  feeling  of  friendliness  is 
springing  up  between  certain  individuals  and  families  of  the 
two  nationalities.  All  of  which  tends  to  confirm  the  state- 
ment of  another  business  man — this  time  of  Seoul,  where 
the  hatred  of  the  Koreans  for  the  Japanese  is  studiously  kept 
aglow  by  Korean  officialdom  and  by  selfishly  interested 
foreigners — that  in  fifty  years,  or  less,  no  difference  would 
be  known  between  the  two.  There  will  then,  perhaps,  be 
Koreans  boasting  of  their  Japanese  descent  and  Japanese 
boasting  of  their  Korean  descent;  and  a  multitude  of  the 
people  who  will  not  even  raise  the  question  for  themselves 
as  to  which  kind  of  blood  is  thickest  in  their  veins.  Every- 
where on  the  face  of  the  earth  ethnology  is  teaching  the 


120          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

lesson  that  "purity"  of  blood. is  as  much  a  fiction  as  is  the 
so-called  "  primitive  man." 

According  to  Mr.  Townsend,  one  cause  of  the  deforestation 
of  so  large  regions  of  Korea  in  former  times  was  the  fear  of 
tigers;  this  fear  was,  of  course,  greatly  increased  by  the  fact 
that  the  Government  did  not  dare  to  entrust  the  people  with 
firearms.  The  tiger-hunters  were,  it  will  be  remembered,  a 
species  of  officials  who  composed  the  bravest,  and  oftentimes 
the  only  brave,  troops  in  the  king's  army.  As  late  as  about 
sixty  years  ago  the  principal  road  to  Pyeng-yang  from  Seoul 
passed  through  a  stretch  of  dense  forest  infested  with  tigers. 
As  long  as  the  slaughter  by  these  beasts  did  not  average  more 
than  one  man  a  week,  the  people  thought  it  could  be  borne; 
but  when  the  number  killed  in  this  way  rose  to  one  or  two  a 
day,  they  applied  to  the  Tai  Won  Kun,  and  permission  was 
given  to  cut  down  the  forest. 

The  prevalence  of  the  tiger  and  also  the  method  of  govern- 
mental control  over  their  capture  and  over  the  sale  of  their 
skins  is  well  illustrated  by  the  following  amusing  story. 
Recently,  a  foreigner  who  was  fond  of  hunting  big  game, 
brought  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Mr.  Townsend  and  asked 
•him  to  negotiate  for  him  with  two  tiger-hunters  for  a  trip  to 
the  region  of  Mokpo.  Knowing  well  the  Korean  character 
as  respects  veracity,  it  was  necessary  for  the  inquirer  to 
discover  in  indirect  ways  whether  the  men  were  really 
courageous  and  skilful  hunters,  as  well  as  whether  tigers 
were  really  to  be  met  in  the  region  over  which  it  was  pro- 
posed to  hunt.  Something  like  the  following  conversation 
then  took  place: — "You  claim  to  be  brave  tiger-hunters,  but 
have  you  ever  actually  killed  a  tiger?"  "Yes,  of  course, 
many  of  them."  "But  what  are  you  hunting  at  the  present 
time?"  "Just  now  we  are  hunting  ducks."  "How  much 
is  a  tiger  worth  to  you  when  you  succeed  in  getting  one?" 
"Well,  if  we  can  have  all  there  is  of  him — the  skin,  the 


CHEMULPO   AND   OTHER   PLACES          121 

bones"  (which,  when  powdered,  make  a  medicine  much 
prized  by  the  Chinese  on  account  of  its  supposed  efficacy  in 
imparting  vigor  or  restoring  strength),  "-and  all  the  rest,  we 
should  make  at  least  no  yen.11  "Why,  then,  do  you  hunt 
ducks  which  bring  you  so  little,  when  you  might  kill  tigers, 
which  are  worth  so  much?"  "Yes,  but  if  I  kill  a  tiger,  the 
magistrate  hears  of  it  and  sends  for  me;  and  he  says:  'You 
are  a  brave  man,  for  you  have  killed  a  tiger.  You  deserve 
a  reward  for  your  courage.  Here  are  five  yen;  but  the 
tiger,  you  know,  belongs  to  the  Crown,  and  I  will  take  that 
in  the  name  of  His  Majesty.'  Now  do  you  think  I  am  going 
to  risk  my  life  to  earn  1 20  yen  for  the  magistrate,  who  squeezes 
me  enough  anyway,  and  get  only  5  yen  for  myself?" 

"But,  tell  me  truly,  are  there  really  tigers  to  be  found  in 
that  neighborhood?"  "Yes,  indeed,  there  are."  "How 
do  you  know  that?"  "Why,  just  recently  two  men  of  the 
neighborhood  were  eaten  by  tigers."  "Indeed,  that  is  cer- 
tainly encouraging."  "It  may  be  encouraging  for  the 
foreign  gentleman  who  wishes  to-  hunt  the  tiger,  but  it  was 
not  very  encouraging  for  the  Korean  gentlemen  who  were 
eaten  by  tigers."  The  grim  humor  of  all  this  will  be  the 
better  appreciated  when  it  is  remembered  how  omniscient 
and  •omnivorous  are  the  Korean  magistrates  as  "squeezers"; 
and  how  large  the  chances  of  the  tiger  are  against  the  hunter, 
when  the  latter  is  equipped  only  with  an  old-fashioned  musket 
and  a  slow-burning  powder  which  must  be  lighted  by  a  fuse. 

A  story  of  a  quite  different  order  will  always  attach  itself 
in  my  memory  to  the  name  of  Chemulpo.  During  the  Chino- 
Japan  War  one  of  the  missionary  families,  now  in  Seoul,  was 
living  in  the  part  near  the  barracks  where  the  Japanese 
soldiers  were  quartered  until  they  could  be  sent  by  sea  to  the 
front.  One  day  a  petty  officer  came  up  on  the  porch  of  the 
house,  uninvited;  but  after  accepting  gratefully  the  cup  of 
tea  offered  to  him,  being  unable  to  speak  any  English,  he 


122  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

went  away,  leaving  the  object  of  his  apparent  intrusion 
quite  unexplained.  Soon  after,  however,  he  returned  with 
some  twenty  of  his  comrades,  mostly  petty  officers,  accom- 
panying him;  and  when  the  hostess  was  becoming  somewhat 
alarmed  at  the  number  for  whom  she  might  be  expected  to 
furnish  tea  and  cakes,  one  of  the  company,  who  could  best 
express  their  wishes  in  the  foreign  language,  revealed  the 
motive  of  the  soldiers'  visit.  He  explained  in  broken  Eng- 
lish that  they  had  come  to  see  the  baby — a  girl  about  two 
years  old.  The  little  one  was  then  brought  out  by  the 
mother  and  placed  in  the  arms  of  the  speaker,  who  carried 
the  child  along  the  line  formed  of  his  comrades  and  gave 
each  one  a  chance  to  see  her,  to  smile  at  her,  and  to  say  a 
few  words  to  her  in  an  unknown  tongue.  On  going  away, 
after  this  somewhat  formal  paying  of  respects  to  "the  baby," 
the  Japanese  officer  still  further  explained:  "Madam,"  said 
he,  "  to-morrow  morning  we  are  going  to  the  front  and  we 
do  not  expect  ever  to  return.  But  before  we  go  to  die,  we 
wanted  to  bid  good-by  to  the  baby."  In  the  Russo-Japanese 
war  nothing  else  so  cheered  the  soldiers  of  Japan  on  their 
way  to  the  transports  for  Manchuria  as  the  crowds  of  school- 
children at  all  the  railway  stations,  with  their  flags  and  their 
banzais.  The  number  of  the  regiment  to  which  these  sol- 
diers, who  bade  good-by  to  the  American  baby  before  they 
went  forth  to  die,  was  taken  note  of  by  the  mother.  Their 
expectation  came  true;  they  did  not  return. 

The  only  other  excursion  by  rail  from  Seoul  which  we 
made  during  our  visit  to  Korea  was  to  attend  the  formal 
opening  ceremony  of  the  Agricultural  and  Industrial  Model 
Station  at  Suwon.  The  history  of  its  founding  is  copied 
from  the  account  of  the  Seoul  Press: 

Shortly  after  the  inauguration  of  the  Residency- General  last 
year,  the  Korean  Government  was  induced  to  engage  a  number 


CHEMULPO   AND   OTHER  PLACES          123 

of  Japanese  experts  well  versed  in  agriculture  and  dendrology 
with  a  view  to  the  organizing  and  conducting  a  school  for  training 
young  Koreans  in  the  principles  and  practice  of  scientific  hus- 
bandry and  forestry.  The  establishment  of  such  a  school  was 
absolutely  necessary  in  order  to  insure  success  to  the  work  of 
improving  agriculture  and  forestry,  to  which  the  Resident-General 
wisely  attached  great  importance. 

At  the  suggestion  of  these  experts,  it  was  decided  to  establish 
the  school  in  question  at  Suwon,  on  a  site  adjacent  to  the  Agri- 
cultural and  Industrial  Model  Station  there,  the  proximity  of 
these  two  institutions  being  attended  by  various  obvious  advan- 
tages. The  school-buildings  and  dormitories,  together  with  houses 
for  members  of  the  faculty,  were  erected  at  a  total  outlay  of  a 
little  over  44,000  yen,  being  completed  by  the  end  of  1906. 

Pending  the  completion  of  the  buildings,  instruction  was,  for 
the  time  being,  given  in  the  class-rooms  of  the  former  Agricultural, 
Commercial  and  Industrial  School  at  Seoul  from  the  loth  of  Sep- 
tember, 1906.  The  last-mentioned  school  had  been  established 
a  few  years  ago  under  the  control  of  the  Department  of  Educa- 
tion. Its  organization  was  too  imperfect  to  make  it  possible  for 
it  to  attain  the  object  for  which  it  was  established. 

Early  this  year  the  School  of  Agriculture  and  Dendrology  re- 
moved to  its  new  quarters  at  Suwon.  The  post  of  principal  is 
filled  by  the  director  of  the  Agricultural  Bureau  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  Commerce  and  Industry.  The  teaching 
staff  consists  of  five  professors  (Japanese)  and  two  assistant  pro- 
fessors (Koreans). 

There  are  two  departments:  (i)  the  Ordinary,  and  (2)  the 
Special.  The  Ordinary  Department  extends  over  two  years  and 
the  Special  Department  one  year.  The  latter  Department  con- 
sists of  two  separate  courses,  namely,  agricultural  and  dendro- 
logical.  These  courses  are  open  to  such  of  the  graduates  of  the 
Ordinary  Department  as  may  desire  still  further  to  prosecute 
their  studies  in  their  respective  special  branches.  Besides  the 
above-mentioned  departments,  there  is  a  practical  training  course 
for  giving  elementary  instruction  in  some  special  subjects  connected 
with  agriculture  or  forestry.  The  term  is  not  more  than  one  year. 


124          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

It  may  be  interesting  to  tabulate  the  various  subjects  taught  in 
the  respective  departments.  They  are  as  follows: 

ORDINARY  DEPARTMENT: — Morals,  Japanese,  Mathematics, 
Physics  and  Meteorology,  Natural  History,  Outlines  of  Agricul- 
ture, Soil  and  Manures,  Crops,  Dairy  Produce,  Sericulture,  Agri- 
culture, Agricultural  Manufacture,  Outlines  of  Dendrology,  Out- 
lines of  Afforestation,  Outlines  of  Veterinary  Medicine,  and 
Political  Economy  and  Law. 

SPECIAL  DEPARTMENT  (Agricultural  Course): — Soil,  Manure, 
Physiological  Botany,  Diseases  of  Crops,  Injurious  Insects,  Dairy 
Produce,  Sericulture  and  Spinning  of  Silk  Yarns,  Agricultural 
Manufactures,  and  Agronomy. 

SPECIAL  DEPARTMENT  (Dendrological  Course) : — Dendrological 
Mathematics,  Afforestation  and  Forest  Protection,  Forest  Econ- 
omy, Utilization  of  Forests,  Forest  Administration. 

Instruction  in  these  subjects  is  given  through  the  medium  of 
interpreters,  the  last-mentioned  office  being  fulfilled  by  the  Korean 
Assistant  Professors.  The  number  of  students  fixed  for  the  re- 
spective departments,  is  80  for  the  Ordinary,  and  40  for  the 
Special  Department,  the  number  for  the  practical  Training  course 
being  fixed  each  time  according  to  the  requirements.  The  num- 
ber of  students  at  present  receiving  instruction  is  26  in  the  Ordi- 
nary Department,  and  12  in  the  Practical  Training  course.  It 
is  very  satisfactory  to  learn  that  these  students  are  highly  com- 
mended for  obedience,  good  conduct,  and  industry.  This  prom- 
ises well,  not  only  for  the  success  of  the  school,  but  for  the  progress 
of  the  nation. 

This  lengthy  account  of  the  founding  and  progress  of  the 
school  and  station,  whose  opening  ceremonial  was  to  be  cele- 
brated on  Wednesday,  May  15,  1907,  is  given  because  of 
the  great  importance  of  the  relation  which  every  such  enter- 
prise sustains  to  the  lasting  success  of  the  Japanese  Pro- 
tectorate and  to  the  welfare  of  Korea  under  this  Protectorate. 
Hitherto,  the  considerable  sums  of  money  which  have  been 
from  time  to  time  obtained  from  the  Korean  Government  to 


CHEMULPO  AND   OTHER   PLACES          125 

found  and  to  foster  schemes  for  improved  education  or 
industrial  development  have  almost  without  exception  been 
unfruitful  expenditures.  The  appropriation  has  either  been 
absorbed  by  the  promoters  of  the  schemes,  or  if  really  spent 
upon  the  objects  for  which  it  was  appropriated,  both  interest 
and  care  have  ceased  with  the  spending  of  the  money.  Even 
the  missionary  schools,  which  have  up  to  very  recent  times 
afforded  the  only  means  for  obtaining  the  elements  of  a  good 
modern  education — valuable  as  they  have  been,  especially 
as  means  of  propagandism — have  too  often  resulted  in  send- 
ing out  graduates  who,  if  they  could  not  get  the  coveted 
official  positions,  were  fit  for  nothing  else.  In  Korea,  as  in 
India — to  take  a  conspicuous  example — the  students  from 
these  schools  have  sometimes  become  rather  more  practically 
worthless  for  the  service  of  their  nation,  or  even  positively 
mischievous,  than  they  could  have  been  if  left  uneducated. 
But  what  Korea  now  most  imperatively  needs  is  educated 
men,  who  are  not  afraid  of  honest  work;  men,  also,  who  will 
not  accept  official  position  at  the  expense  of  their  manly  in- 
dependence and  moral  character,  or  gain  it  by  means  of 
intrigue  and  corruption.  But  "honest  work"  must,  for  a 
considerable  time  to  come,  be  chiefly  connected  with  the 
agricultural  and  industrial  development  of  the  country. 
Moreover,  the  institution  at  Suwon  is  demonstrating  that 
the  Koreans  can  make  good  students  and  skilful  practitioners 
in  the,  to  them,  new  sciences  which  give  control  over  nature's 
resources  for  the  benefit  of  man.  The  Confucian  education 
hitherto  dominant  in  this  country  has  chiefly  resulted  in  cul- 
tivating scholars  who  either  sacrificed  usefulness  in  service  to 
the  false  sentiment  of  honor,  or  else  subordinated  the  most 
fundamental  principles  of  morality  to  that  skill  in  official 
positions  which  secured  the  maximum  of  squeezes  with  the 
minimum  of  resistance.  And,  finally,  nothing  so  under- 
mines and  destroys  race-hatred  as  the  prolonged  association 


126  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

of  the  two  races  in  the  peaceable  relations  of  teacher  and 
pupil;  or  of  teachers  and  pupils  with  their  respective  col- 
leagues. 

Six  car-loads  of  invited  guests,  belonging  to  all  classes  of 
the  most  influential  people  of  Seoul  and  Chemulpo,  left  the 
South- Gate  Station  on  a  special  train  at  one  and  a  half 
o'clock,  on  that  Wednesday  afternoon,  for  Suwon.  Marquis 
Ito  and  his  staff,  and  other  Japanese  officials,  Korean  Min- 
isters and  their  guards,  all  the  foreign  Consuls,  the  principal 
men  of  business,  representatives  of  the  press,  and  Christian 
missionaries  were  of  the  party.  The  day  was  warm,  but 
fine;  the  landscape  was  even  more  beautiful  in  its  coloring 
than  usual.  On  arrival  at  the  station  of  Suwon,  the  guests 
were  met  by  the  Minister  and  Vice-Minister  of  Agriculture, 
Commerce  and  Industry,  by  Dr.  Honda,  the  director  of  the 
Model  Station,  and  others,  who  escorted  them  on  foot  over 
a  newly  made  road  through  the  paddy  fields  belonging  to 
the  station.  It  did  not  need  an  expert  eye  to  see  the  immense 
difference,  as  regards  economy  of  arrangement  and  efficiency 
of  culture,  between  these  fields  and  the  relatively  uneconomi- 
cally  arranged  and  unproductive  fields  along  the  railway  by 
which  we  had  passed  as  we  came  to  Suwon. 

The  Agricultural  School  and  Station  are  beautifully  lo- 
cated; the  lake,  which  has  been  made  by  damming  a  stream, 
with  the  plain  under  improved  cultivation,  and  the  surround- 
ing mountains,  all  combine  to  produce  a  charming  scene. 
On  reaching  the  Model  Station  itself  a  brief  time  for  rest 
was  allowed;  this  could  be  improved  by  those  who  wished 
to  inspect  the  rooms  where  the  specimens  were  displayed, 
and  the  laboratories  of  various  kinds.  The  ceremonial  pro- 
ceedings were  opened  by  the  director,  Dr.  Honda,  who  re- 
ported the  progress  already  made  and  defined  the  work  which 
was  to  be  attempted  for  the  future.  The  work  was  to  con- 
sist in  the  improvement  of  the  quality  of  the  seeds,  the  in- 


CHEMULPO   AND   OTHER   PLACES          127 

troduction  and  acclimatization  of  new  varieties  of  farm 
products,  the  instruction  of  the  farmers,  the  supply  of  ma- 
nures, the  effecting  of  improved  irrigation,  drainage,  and  pro- 
tection against  inundation,  the  improvement  of  poultry  and 
dairy  farming,  the  introduction  and  encouragement  of  seri- 
culture, and  the  securing  of  more  by-products  on  the  farms. 

After  a  few  words  from  Mr.  Song,  the  Korean  Minister  of 
Agriculture,  Marquis  Ito  made  a  somewhat  lengthy  ad- 
dress. He  spoke  frankly  in  criticism  of  the  failures  which 
the  Korean  Government  had  hitherto  made  in  its  various 
attempts  to  accomplish  anything  for  improving  the  miserable 
lot  of  the  toiling  millions  of  the  Korean  people.  "Not  only 
had  nothing  been  done  to  ameliorate  their  condition,  but 
much  had  been  done  to  injure  their  interests  and  aggravate 
their  miseries.  Let  those  who  boasted  of  their  knowledge 
of  Chinese  philosophy  remember  the  well-known  teaching 
that  the  secret  of  statesmanship  consists  in  securing  the  con- 
tentment of  the  people."  His  Excellency  then  referred  to  the 
example  of  the  great  Okubo  in  Japan,  who  founded  an 
agricultural  college  there  in  1875,  spoke  of  the  brilliant 
results  which  had  followed  this  improved  instruction  and 
practice,  and  hoped  that  the  Korean  officials,  in  whose 
charge  this  well-equipped  institution  was  now  placed,  would 
make  it  equally  useful  to  the  Korean  people. 

The  ceremonial  part  of  the  day  was  closed  by  an  address 
by  Mr.  Kwon,  the  Minister  of  War,  who  had  formerly  been, 
although,  as  he  confessed,  without  any  knowledge  of  such 
matters,  head  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  Commerce 
and  Industry.  It  was  indeed  fourteen  years  since  a  depart- 
ment had  been  founded  for  the  improvement  of  agriculture; 
but  "nothing  worth  speaking  of  had  been  initiated  by  that 
department."  After  spending  170,000  yen  on  the  station, 
Japan  had  kindly  consented  to  turn  it  over  to  the  Korean 
Government.  He  was  hopeful  that  the  change  already 


128          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

beginning  to  be  felt  in  the  interests  of  the  farming  population 
of  his  country  would  in  the  near  future  result  in  a  large  im- 
provement in  their  condition.  [It  does  not  need  to  be  said 
to  those  acquainted  with  the  way  in  which  such  projects  for 
developing  the  resources  of  Korea  have  hitherto  been  con- 
ducted, that  both  the  grave  rebuke  of  Marquis  Ito  and  the 
confessions  of  the  Korean  Ministers  are  amply  warranted.] 

The  ceremony  concluded,  refreshments  were  served  in 
and  about  an  old  and  historically  interesting  Korean  build- 
ing, which  is  situated  a  few  rods  below  the  farm  station  and 
just  above  the  nearer  end  of  the  dam.  After  this,  the  whole 
company  walked  back  to  the  railway  by  a  road  laid  out  on 
the  back  of  the  dam,  which  is  shaded  with  young  trees  and 
made  attractive  by  views  of  lake,  fertile  plains,  and  hill- 
sides and  mountains  in  the  distance  on  every  side.  On  the 
plain  below  the  dam  some  Koreans  were  holding  a  panto- 
mimic celebration,  or  merry-making,  of  the  sort  which  it  is 
their  custom  to  commit  to  hired  bands  of  men  skilful  in 
affording  this  species  of  amusement.  On  the  hill-sides  at 
the  end  of  the  dam,  and  above  the  track  of  the  railway, 
hundreds  of  other  Koreans — adults  in  glistening  white  and 
children  in  colors  of  varied  and  deepest  dyes — were  quietly 
enjoying  the  scene.  When  the  train  stopped  at  the  point 
nearest  the  end  of  the  pleasant  walk,  it  was,  I  am  sure,  a 
well  satisfied  crowd  of  guests  which  returned  by  it  to  Seoul. 

With  this  ceremony  at  Suwon  another  which  I  had  pre- 
viously attended  in  Seoul  naturally  connects  itself..  This 
was  the  opening  of  the  Industrial  Training  School,  the 
initial  outlay  for  which,  including  the  cost  of  buildings  and 
apparatus,  amounted  to  a  little  more  than  110,000  yen. 
The  significance  of  this  enterprise  will  be  the  better  under- 
stood when  it  is  remarked  that  the  native  workmen  of  to- 
day make  nothing  whatever,  with  the  exception  of  a  few 
cheap  brasses  and  the  attractive  Korean  chests,  that  any 


CHEMULPO  AND   OTHER  PLACES         129 

foreigner  would  be  inclined  to  buy.  Moreover,  their  own 
tools  and  machinery  of  every  description  are  exceedingly 
crude  and  old-fashioned.  At  the  ceremony  in  Seoul  ad- 
dresses were  made  similiar  to  those  listened  to  at  the  Suwon 
affair.  Mr.  Yamada,  the  principal  of  the  Institute,  reported 
that  out  of  the  eleven  hundred  applicants  who  had  presented 
themselves  for  examination,  fifty  students  had  been  admitted. 
Marquis  Ito  and  the  Korean  speakers  dwelt  upon  the  same 
facts — namely,  the  deplorable  backwardness  of  the  nation  in 
industrial  matters,  the  unsatisfactory  results  of  past  endeavors 
at  improvement,  and  the  needs  and  hopes  of  the  future. 
After  the  addresses,  the  guests  visited  the  different  workshops, 
where  the  Korean  students  were  to  be  given  manual  training; 
and  then  resorted  to  the  sides  of  the  mountain  above,  where 
refreshments  were  served.  The  decorative  features  of  the 
festivities — consisting  of  the  Korean  crowds  on  the  upper 
mountain  sides,  the  uniformed  officials  in  and  around  the 
refreshment  booths,  and  the  brilliant  bloom  of  the  cherry 
bushes  and  plum  trees — were  even  more  striking  than  at 
Suwon.  On  this  occasion  it  was  my  pleasure  to  receive  a 
cordial  greeting  from  some  of  the  Korean  officials,  among 
whom  was  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  the  cousin  of  the 
Governor  at  Pyeng-yang.  It  was  evident  that  he  had  heard 
from  his  cousin  of  the  assistance  rendered  directly  by  the 
missionaries  and  indirectly  by  me,  in  the  way  of  quieting  the 
excited  condition  of  the  Korean  population  at  the  time  of 
our  visit. 

If  official  corruption  can  be  kept  aloof  from  these  enter- 
prises, and  an  honest  and  intelligent  endeavor  made  to  carry 
out  the  plans  of  the  Japanese  Government  under  Marquis 
Ito  for  the  agricultural  and  industrial  development  of  Korea, 
there  is  little  reason  to  doubt  that  a  speedy  and  great  im- 
provement will  result.  That  the  Korean  common  people, 
in  spite  of  their  characteristic  air  of  indifference  and  their 


130          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

appearance  of  indolence,  can  be  stirred  with  ambition,  and 
that  when  aroused  they  will  make  fairly  industrious  and  apt 
learners,  there  is,  in  my  judgment,  no  good  reason  to  deny. 
The  experience  of  the  "Seoul  Electric  Railway,"  and  of 
other  similar  enterprises,  favors  this  judgment.  Not  to 
speak  of  the  financial  methods  of  this  company,  and  after 
admitting  that  the  physical  condition  of  its  property  and  the 
character  of  its  service  leave  much  to  be  desired,  it  has  been, 
on  the  whole,  successful  in  demonstrating  the  possibility  of 
conducting  such  business  enterprises  by  means  of  Korean 
labor.  Mr.  Morris,  its  manager,  who  came  to  Seoul  in  July, 
1899,  told  me  the  interesting  story  of  his  earlier  experiences. 
The  working  of  the  road  during  the  first  years  of  its  running 
was  accompanied  by  enormous  difficulties.  Neither  the  pas- 
sengers, nor  the  motormen  and  the  conductors  had  any 
respect  for  the  value  of  time;  most  of  the  employees  had  even 
to  learn  how  to  tell  time  by  their  watches.  The  populace 
thought  it  proper  for  the  cars  to  stop  anywhere,  and  for  any 
length  of  period  which  seemed  convenient  to  them.  If  the 
car  did  not  stop,  the  passengers  made  a  mad  rush  for  it  and 
attempted  to  jump  on;  they  also  jumped  off  wherever  they 
wished,  whether  the  car  stopped  or  not.  This  practice  re- 
sulted in  serious  bruises  and  fractured  skulls  as  an  almost 
daily  occurrence.  Native  pedestrians  in  the  streets  of  Seoul 
were  not  content  to  walk  stolidly  and  with  a  dignified  strut 
(which  is  still  the  habit  of  the  Korean  before  an  approaching 
Japanese  jinrikisha)  along  the  track  in  the  daylight,  with 
the  expectation  that  the  car  would  go  around  them;  but  at 
evening  they  utilized  the  road-bed  by  lying  down  to  sleep  on 
the  track  with  their  heads  on  boards  placed  across  its  rails. 
One  dark  night  in  the  first  summer  three  men  were  killed  by 
the  last  trip  between  the  river  and  the  city.  In  those  days 
the  broad  thoroughfare,  which  is  now  kept  open  for  its  entire 
length,  was  greatly  narrowed  by  rows  of  booths  and  "chow'7 


CHEMULPO   AND   OTHER   PLACES          131 

shops  on  either  side.  Here  the  men  from  the  country  would 
tie  their  ponies  (the  Korean  pony  is  notable  for  his  vicious 
temper  when  excited)  to  the  tables,  and>  reclining  upon  the 
same  tables,  would  proceed  to  enjoy  their  portion  of  food. 
When  the  electric  car  came  through  the  centre  of  the  street, 
the  beasts  went  wild  with  fright;  sometimes  they  dashed 
into  the  shops ;  sometimes  they  fled  down  the  street  dragging 
the  tables  and  scattering  "chow"  and  men  in  every  direc- 
tion. At  one  place  the  line  to  the  river  runs  over  a  low  hill 
which  is,  in  the  popular  superstition,  a  part  of  the  body  of 
the  rain-bringing  Dragon.  In  a  dry  season  the  people  be- 
came greatly  excited  and  threatened  violence  to  those  who 
had  brought  upon  them  the  calamity  of  drought  by  such 
sacrilege  done  to  the  body  of  this  deity.  Mr.  Morris  had 
himself  fled  for  his  life  before  a  Korean  mob  who  were  ready 
to  tear  him  in  pieces  to  avenge  the  killing  of  a  child  by  the 
car.  At  the  present  time,  however,  there  were  fewer  acci- 
dents in  Seoul  than  on  the  electric  car-lines  of  Japan;  and 
many  fewer  than  those  from  the  same  cause  in  the  larger 
cities  of  the  United  States.  In  one  of  the  more  recent  years 
they  had  carried  6,000,000  passengers  and  had  only  killed 
one.  This  is  certainly  not  a  bad  record ;  for  while,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  service  of  the  road  is  relatively  slow  and  infrequent, 
on  the  other  hand,  in  Seoul  there  are  no  sidewalks  and  the 
streets  are  thronged  with  foot-passengers  and  with  children 
at  play. 

One  other  excursion  from  Seoul  is,  perhaps,  worthy  of 
record  as  throwing  some  sidelights  upon  Korea — this  time, 
however,  chiefly  an  affair  of  recreation.  This  was  the  ascent 
of  Puk  Han,  the  ancient  place  of  royal  refuge  in  cases  of 
revolt  or  foreign  invasion.  The  party  consisted  of  Mr. 
Cockburn,  the  British  Consul- General;  Mr.  Davidson,  the 
successor  of  J.  McLeavy  Brown  in  the  Department  of  Cus- 
toms; Dr.  and  Mrs.  Wm.  B.  Scranton,  and  Madam  Scranton, 


132  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

the  mother  of  the  Doctor.  Mr.  Cockburn  and  Mr.  David- 
son made  the  ascent  as  far  as  was  possible  in  jinrikishas, 
and  the  rest  of  the  party  in  chairs  carried  by  four  or  six 
coolies  each.  By  the  longer  way  out  ^which  the  party  took, 
there  was,  however,  much  walking  (but  no  hard  climbing) 
to  do;  and  by  the  shorter  way  home,  with  its  much  steeper 
descent,  there  was  little  besides  walking  which  could  safely 
be  done  by  any  one. 

The  actual  start  was  preceded  by  the  customary  bargain- 
ing with  the  coolies.  This  resulted  in  reducing  by  one-half 
the  original  charge — only  to  find  the  head  man  applying 
late  in  the  evening  after  our  return  for  an  additional  "  present " 
direct  from  me,  in  reliance  on  my  ignorance  of  the  fact  that 
a  handsome  present  had  already  been  given  through  the 
friend  who  made  the  arrangement.  But,  then,  such  squeezes 
are  not  confined  to  Korea  in  the  Far  East,  nor  are  they 
peculiar  to  the  Far  East  and  infrequent  in  London,  Paris, 
and  New  York. 

Under  "Independence  Arch,"  where,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  the  promise  of  a  new  and  really  independent  Korea  is 
built  into  the  form  of  a  monument  of  stone,  the  whole  party 
were  photographed.  At  a  small  village  some  three  miles 
from  Seoul,  the  coolies  made  another  stop;  here  they  re- 
ceived their  first  advance  of  money  for  "chow."  In  the 
street  of  the  village  was  standing  one  of  those  gorgeous 
palanquins  which  serve  as  biers,  and  which  give  the  lifeless 
body  of  the  poorest  Korean  his  one  ride  in  state  to  the  hill- 
sides where  the  tombs  of  the  dead  hold  the  ground  against 
the  fields  needed  for  cultivation  by  the  living.  But  these 
hill-sides  at  least  serve  the  living  to  some  good  purpose  as 
preferred  places  for  recreation  and  for  intercourse  with 
nature,  as  well  as,  in  some  sort,  with  their  deceased  ancestors. 
In  Korea,  as  in  India,  birth,  marriage,  and  death  are  expen- 
sive luxuries  for  the  poor;  to  get  into  the  world,  to  beget  an 


CHEMULPO   AND    OTHER   PLACES          133 

heir,  and  to  get  out  of  the  world  again,  absorb  all  the  accu- 
mulated resources  of  a  lifetime  of  toil  for  the  average  Korean. 
Surely,  under  such  circumstances,  "the  will  to  live"  lays 
itself  open  to  the  charge  of  Schopenhauer — that  it  is  blind 
and  working  ever  to  the  production  of  increased  misery. 
Industrial  development,  firmly  coupled  with  improved  moral- 
ity, and  with  the  cheer  and  hopes  of  an  elevating  religion, 
as  a  true  "psychical  uplift,"  are  the  only  sufficient  cure  for 
such  pessimistic  tendencies. 

Among  the  several  attempts  at  photographing  made  on 
the  way  to  Puk  Han,  were  some  intended  to  catch  one  of  the 
numerous  Korean  children  who  appeared  puris  in  natural- 
ibus.  These  were  uniformly  unsuccessful.  Pictures  of  this 
characteristic  sort  were  not  to  be  had  by  us  foreigners,  al- 
though the  attempts  were  supported  by  the  offer  of  sizable 
coins.  At  the  first  motion  to  point  the  camera  toward  these 
features  of  the  landscape,  they  took  to  their  heels  and  fled 
afar  with  urgent  precipitancy. 

Within  perhaps  two  miles  of  the  Outer  Gate  of  the  moun- 
tain Fortress  we  were  obliged  to  dismount,  the  way  having 
become  too  rough  and  difficult  even  for  chairs  with  four 
coolies  each.  Puk  Han's  wall  was  built  in  1711;  although 
there  is  a  not  altogether  improbable  tradition  that  the  moun- 
tain, which  is  somewhat  more  than  2,000  feet  high,  was 
fortified  long  before,  under  the  Pakje  kingdom.  The  gate 
through  which  one  enters  the  walled  enclosure  is  picturesque 
and  interesting.  Not  far  inside  the  wall,  across  a  little  valley, 
are  to  be  seen  the  solid  stone  foundations  of  the  new  Bud- 
dhist temple  which  is  to  take  the  place  of  one  that  was  de- 
stroyed by  fire.  This  is  one  of  several  indications  that  the 
introduction  of  modern  civilization  and  of  Christian  missions 
is  to  be  followed  in  Korea,  as  it  certainly  has  been  followed 
in  Japan  and  elsewhere,  by  a  revival  of  the  spirit,  and  an 
improvement  in  the  form  and  efficacy,  of  the  older  religion  of 


i34  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

the  country.  Buddhism  has,  indeed,  been  for  centuries 
largely  lacking  in  all  moral  force  and  spiritual  satisfactions  in 
Korea.  But  I  cannot  agree  with  those  who  are  so  sure  that 
it  is  not  capable  of  revival  there,  of  improvement,  and  even 
of  offering  a  vigorous  competition  to  Christian  evangelizing. 

As  we  climbed  up  toward  the  pavilion  in  which  we  were 
to  take  our  luncheon,  we  saw  few  ruins  of  the  structures  which 
were  once  scattered  over  the  area  within  the  mountain's 
wall;  but  everywhere  was  an  abundance  of  beautiful  wild 
flowers  and  flowering  shrubs.  Among  the  many  varieties 
were  wigelia,  cypripedium,  several  kinds  of  iris,  Solomon' s- 
seal,  syringa,  hydrangea,  giant  saxifrage,  large  white  cle- 
matis, hawthorne,  jassamine,  lilies  of  the  valley,  many  kinds 
of  violets  and  azaleas,  wild  white  roses,  viburnum,  Allegheny 
vine,  and  wild  cherry. 

About  twenty  minutes  before  we  reached  the  pavilion  where 
it  was  proposed  to  spread  out  our  luncheon,  great  drops  of 
rain  caused  us  to  quicken  our  pace;  and  the  following  smart 
shower  which  crept  by  the  brow  of  the  overhanging  moun- 
tain, in  spite  of  the  protection  of  our  umbrellas,  gave  the 
party  somewhat  of  a  wetting  before  shelter  was  reached. 
But  soon  the  rain  was  over;  the  sun  came  gloriously  out; 
the  mountain  stream  which  was  just  below  the  outer  wall 
of  the  pavilion  ran  fuller  and  more  merrily;  and  the  food 
was  more  comforting  in  contrast  with  the  slight  preceding 
discomfort. 

Lying  in  the  sun  on  a  shelving  rock,  I  had  an  interesting 
conversation  with  the  English  Consul- General.  In  the 
course  of  this  Mr.  Cockburn  expressed  the  amazement  of 
his  country  at  what  he  graciously  called  the  "patience"  of 
Americans  in  putting  up  so  quietly  with  political  and  social 
wrongs  which  the  English  had  refused  any  longer  to  suffer, 
now  nearly  a  century  ago.  He  seemed  sincerely  gratified 
at  my  assurance  that  the  feeling  of  the  United  States  toward 


CHEMULPO   AND   OTHER   PLACES          135 

England  is  more  cordial  and  appreciative  of  our  common 
good  and  common  mission  in  the  world  than  was  the  case 
twenty-five  and  thirty  years  ago.  I  found  myself  also  in 
hearty  agreement  with  his  view  that  the  treaty  between  Great 
Britain  and  Japan,  whether  it  should  prove  of  commercial 
advantage  to  the  former,  or  not,  was  fruitful  of  good  to  the 
latter  nation,  to  the  Far  East,  and  to  mankind  as  interested 
.in  the  world's  peace. 

At  about  four  o'clock  the  party  started  on  its  return  to 
Seoul.  The  distance  was  some  ten  miles,  most  of  which 
must  be  walked,  by  a  rather  steep  descent  in  places  over 
barren  surfaces  of  granite  rock.  But  the  path  at  first  led 
us  still  higher  up  the  mountain  until,  having  passed  through 
an  inner  gate,  we  reached  the  outer  wall  upon  the  other  side 
of  the  whole  enclosure.  For  as  much  of  the  slope  of  Puk 
Han,  as  somewhat  more  than  two  miles  of  rambling  wall  can 
embrace,  constitutes  this  fortified  retreat  of  the  Korean 
monarchy.  Thus,  with  its  stores  of  provisions  and  implements 
of  war,  the  cultivated  fields,  palaces,  and  other  official  and 
unofficial  residences  inside,  it  was  intended  that  Puk  Han, 
like  its  somewhat  earlier  colleague,  the  fortresses  of  Kang 
Wha,  should  resist  siege  by  any  numbers  and  for  any  length 
of  time.  But  from  prehistoric  times  to  Port  Arthur,  and  all 
over  the  earth  from  Sevastopol  to  Daulatabad,  the  experi- 
ences of  history  have  shown  how  vain  is  the  hope  of  the  rulers 
of  men  to  ward  off  the  results  of  moral  and  political  degen- 
eracy by  walls  of  stone  and  implements  of  iron. 

Far  away  on  £he  very  top  of  the  mountain,  to  the  left  of 
our  path,  stood  a  watch-tower  which  commanded  a  view  of 
all  this  part  of  Korea.  From  both  of  the  gates  in  this  por- 
tion of  the  wall,  which,  although  they  are  only  a  short  dis- 
tance apart,  look  toward  different  points  of  the  compass, 
the  views  are  extensive  and  charming.  To  the  southward 
one  could  look  down  the  steep  mountain  side,  over  a  valley 


136          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

from  which  rose  rocky  but  brilliantly  colored  hills,  bare  for 
the  most  part  of  foliage,  and  through  which  the  silvery 
thread  of  the  River  Han  wound  its  way,  upon  a  series  of 
mountain  ranges  bounded  only  by  the  horizon.  From  the 
Western  gate  were  to  be  seen  Chemulpo  and  its  island-dotted 
harbor,  and  beyond  the  open  sea. 

The  downward  path  of  Puk  Han  winds  around  the  moun- 
tain, from  the  Southern  gate  in  the  wall  toward  the  north- 
west; and  although  it  is  quite  too  steep  and  rough  for  safe 
descent  in  chairs,  it  is  not  particularly  difficult  for  those  who 
walk  it  with  sound  knee-joints  and  ordinarily  careful  and 
judicious  feet.  For  the  first  five  or  six  miles  it  affords  an 
uninterrupted  series  of  interesting  and  beautiful  views. 
Here  the  colors  of  the  rock,  when  seen  in  full  sunlight,  were 
trying  for  all*  but  the  most  insensitive  eyes.  But  as  the  light 
was  modified  by  the  occasional  passing  of  clouds,  or  by  the 
changes  in  the  relation  of  the  path  to  the  points  of  the  com- 
pass, the  effect  was  kaleidoscopic  in  character  on  a  mag- 
nificent scale.  On  this  side  of  the  mountain  the  shapes  of 
the  rocks  are  peculiar.  In  general,  each  mountain-ridge — 
supreme,  subordinate,  or  still  inferior — is  -composed  of  a 
series  of  pyramidally-shaped  granite  structures,  rising  higher 
and  higher  as  to  their  visible  summits;  but  with  their  sides 
welded,  as  it  were,  together,  and  their  surfaces  of  disintegrated 
yellowish  or  reddish  rock.  Between  the  sides  of  the  pyramids 
in  each  series,  and  between  the  different  series,  and  between 
the  higher  ranges  composed  of  the  series,  are  dry  ravines, 
down  which  the  summer  rains  -descend  in  torrents,  keeping 
the  slopes  of  all  these  rocky  elevations  almost  bare  of  verdure. 
Thus  there  is  produced  an  aspect  of  severe  grandeur  quite 
out  of  proportion  to  the  real  height  of  the  mountains.  But 
this  aspect  is  relieved  by  an  abundant  growth  of  wild  flowers 
and  flowering  shrubs — such  as  have  been  already  named  and 
still  others — with  more  gorgeous  blossoms  than  I  have  any- 


CHEMULPO   AND    OTHER   PLACES          137 

where  else  seen  produced  by  the  same  species.  With  these 
the  ladies  filled  all  hands,  and  all  the  luncheon  baskets — and 
then  even  the  chairs,  which,  however,  we  took  again  as  soon 
as  it  became  practicable,  to  the  relief  of  feet  and  knees;  and 
thus  we  entered  the  city  by  the  North- West  Gate,  where  we 
stopped  awhile  to  rest  the  men  and  to  enjoy  the  magnificent 
view  of  Seoul  from  the  inside  of  the  gate. 

The  excursion  up  Puk  Han  will  certainly  be  remembered 
by  some  of  the  party  as  one  of  the  most  enjoyable  to  be 
obtained  anywhere.  It  far  surpasses  most  of  those  much- 
lauded  by  the  guide-books  in  other  more  frequented  but 
really  less  rewarding  portions  of  the  world. 

If  time  had  permitted,  by  turning  aside  an  hour  or  two, 
the  ascent  of  Puk  Han  might  have  been  varied  by  a  visit 
to  the  "  Great  White  Buddha."  This  rather  interesting  relic 
of  a  long-time  decaying,  but  possibly  now  to  be  revived, 
Buddhism,  I  visited  one  morning  in  company  with  Mr. 
Gillett.  The  path  to  it  leaves  the  main  road  some  miles  out 
of  the  city;  where  it  begins  to  wind  through  the  paddy  fields 
it  becomes  somewhat  difficult  for  jinrikishas.  On  the  way 
one  passes  shrines  such  as  are  used  not  infrequently  for  the 
now  forbidden  exorcising  ceremonies  of  the  sorceresses,  and 
heaps  of  stones  that  are  continually  being  piled  upon  by  the 
passers  along  the  way,  who  wish  thus  to  propitiate  the  spirits 
and  to  obtain  good  luck.  The  Buddha  itself  is  a  large  and 
rudely-shaped  figure,  whitewashed  on  to  the  face  of  a  rock, 
which  has  been  escarped  and  covered  with  a  pavilion,  having 
a  highly  decorative  frieze  and  a  roof  set-on  granite  pillars. 
A  few  women  were  there  worshipping  in  the  manner  common 
to  the  ignorant  populace  in  Korea  and  Japan — i.  e.,  clapping 
the  hands,  offering  a  small  coin  or  two,  and  mumbling  a 
prayer.  A  dirty,  disreputable-looking  priest  was  assiduously 
gathering  up  the  coins,  for  they  had  merely  been  placed  upon 
a  table  before  the  Buddha,  instead  of  being  thrown  into  an 


138          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

enclosed  box.  He  volunteered  the  explanation  that  this  was 
the  most  celebrated  place  in  all  Korea  at  which  to  offer 
effective  prayer  for  a  son;  childless  women,  and  also  men, 
came  from  all  over  the  land  to  worship  at  this  shrine.  In 
Korea,  as  well  as  in  India  and  China,  this  vulgar  and  degrad- 
ing superstition  is  connected  with  ancestor  worship — namely, 
that  the  welfare  of  the  living  and  the  dead,  in  this  world  and 
in  the  next,  is  somehow  inseparably  bound  up  with  begetting 
and  bearing,  or  somehow  possessing,  a  male  descendant. 
No  heavier  curse  is  put  on  woman;  no  subtler  form  of  tempta- 
tion to  lust  for  man;  no  more  burdensome  restriction  on 
society;  and  no  more  efficient  check  to  a  spiritual  faith  and 
a  spiritual  development  exists  among  the  civilized  peoples  of 
the  world  than  this  ancient  but  unworthy  superstition.  Even 
devil-worship  is  scarcely  less  cruel  and  socially  degrading. 

It  was  with  sincere  regret  that  I  left  Korea  without  the 
opportunity  to  see  the  country  even  more  widely,  to  feel  more 
profoundly  the  spirit  of  its  national  life,  and  to  become  more 
acquainted  in  a  relatively  "first-hand"  way  with  its  history 
and  its  antiquities.  I  was  confident  that  I  had  gained 
sufficient  trustworthy  information  to  judge  fairly  of  the 
character  of  the  native  government — Emperor  and  Court 
and  Yang-bans — to  estimate  in  a  measure  the  difficulties 
which  encompassed  the  position  of  the  Resident- General, 
and  to  appreciate  the  sincerity  and  self-sacrificing  nature  of 
his  plans  and  the  value  of  his  achievements.  But  there  are 
few  countries  in  the  world  to-day  where  richer  rewards  await 
the  expert  and  patient  investigator  of  history  and  of  an- 
tiquities. The  history  of  Korea  remains  to  be  written;  its 
antiquities  are  there  to  be  explored. 


CHAPTER    VII 

THE   DEPARTURE 

SOON  after  breakfast  on  the  morning  of  the  day  before 
our  stay  in  Seoul  came  to  an  end  (Monday,  May  27th),  a 
telephone  message  was  reported  with  the  inquiry  whether  we 
expected  to  be  at  home  at  ten  o'clock.  Contrary  to  the  un- 
derstanding of  the  servant  who  brought  the  report,  it  proved 
to  be  Marquis  Ito  himself  who,  accompanied  by  General 
Murata,  had  kindly  taken  the  time  from  his  always  busy 
morning  hours  to  call  in  person  and  bid  his  guests  good-by. 
Speaking  with  his  customary  quiet  deliberation,  brevity,  and 
sincerity,  His  Excellency  thanked  me  for  the  services  ren- 
dered to  him  and  to  his  nation,  both  directly  and  indirectly, 
by  the  visit  to  Korea;  and  the  words  which  added  a  promise 
of  continued  friendship  will  always  remain  among  the  choicest 
of  memories.  In  reply — with  more  adequate  reason  but  with 
no  less  sincerity  and  earnestness — I  thanked  the  Marquis  for 
the  confidence  he  had  reposed  in  me,  and  as  well  for  the 
experience  which  his  invitation  had  furnished.  If  I  had  been 
of  some  small  service,  I  had  received  a  much  more  than 
adequate  reward  in  the  opportunity  of  seeing  an  interesting 
side  of  human  life  which  had  hitherto  been,  for  the  most 
part,  unfamiliar  to  me.  I  also  expressed  my  belief  in  a 
universal  and  omnipotent  Spirit  of  Righteousness,  who 
shapes  the  destinies  of  men  and  of  nations,  and  who  uses  us 
all  in  His  service — if  we  so  will — to  our  own  real  well-being 
and  to  the  good  of  humanity.  God  has  so  bound  together 


i4o  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Japan  and  Korea,  both  physically  and  politically,  .that  their 
interests  cannot  be  separated,  whether  for  weal  or  for  woe. 

In  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day,  at  the  house  of  Mr.  D. 
W.  Stevens,  whose  hospitality  we  had  before  enjoyed  and 
whose  friendship  we  had  learned  highly  to  prize,  we  met  at 
tea  some  twenty-five  of  the  most  intimate  of  the  acquaintances 
made  during  the  previous  two  months.  This  was  not,  how- 
ever, our  final  leave-taking  of  these  friends.  For  the  next 
morning  at  8.50,  at  the  South-Gate  Station,  most  of  the  same 
persons  gathered  to  give  us  one  of  those  partings  which  one 
would  not  gladly  miss,  but  which  are  always  a  mixture  of  sad 
pleasure  and  sweet  pain.  The  insight  of  the  Japanese  lan- 
guage into  such  human  experiences  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  it  has  a  single  word  which  combines  all  these  complex 
elements,  and  expresses  them  in  itself.  Nor  do  I  find  that 
the  repetition  of  many  such  experiences  in  different  far- 
away lands  at  all  changes  the  intrinsic  character  of  the  feel- 
ings they  excite.  To  make  friends  away  from  home  is  the 
traveller's  choicest  pleasure;  to  part  soon  from  these  friends 
is  the  traveller's  keenest  pain. 

The  journey  from  Seoul  to  Fusan  was  without  incident 
and  accomplished  on  time.  As  furnishing  a  change  in  the 
character  of  the  surroundings,  it  is  almost  equivalent  to 
going  from  Korea  to  Japan.  For  Fusan  is  essentially  a 
Japanese  city,  and  has  been  such  for  many  years.  The 
greeting  given  us  on  arrival  was  also  characteristically  Japan- 
ese. There,  on  the  platform,  were  thirty  or  more  of  both 
sexes,  including  the  Resident  and  other  officials,  whose  cards 
were  handed  to  us  with  such  speed  and  profusion  that  to 
recognize  names  was  impossible,  and  even  to  avoid  dropping 
some  of  the  pieces  was  difficult.  The  harbor  launch  again 
served  us,  as  it  had  done  before,  for  transportation  between 
railroad  station  and  Japanese  settlement.  Only  twenty 
minutes  were  allowed  for  effecting  a  presentable  appearance 


THE   DEPARTURE  141 

after  the  day's  travel;  and  then  we  were  ushered  to  the 
dining-room,  where  about  fifty  persons  had  gathered  for  a 
complimentary  banquet.  After  this,  the  Resident  intro- 
duced, welcomed,  and  proposed  a  toast  for  the  guests,  and 
Mr.  Zumoto  interpreted  the  response.  The  banquet  finished, 
there  followed,  in  another  part  of  the  hotel,  an  entertainment 
of  juggling,  a  farce,  and  dancing  to  samisen  and  koto — all  by 
amateur  performers.  The  day  had  certainly,  when  it  ended, 
been  sufficiently  full  of  incident.  But  a  real  old-fashioned 
Japanese  bath,  in  a  deliciously  soft  wooden  tub,  with  water 
at  1 08°  Fahrenheit — the  first  I  had  been  able  to  obtain 
during  this  visit  to  Japan — took  away  all  soreness  of  flesh 
and  weariness  of  spirit,  and  secured  a  good  night's  rest. 

The  following  morning  in  Fusan  was  dull  and  unpromising 
— there  was  drizzle,  cloud,  and  fog  over  land  and  sea,  and  a 
fresh  breeze.  In  spite  of  the  weather,  however,  we  were 
taken  in  jinrikishas  to  the  villa  of  Mr.  Kuruda,  one  of  the 
oldest  of  the  Japanese  settlers,  a  prosperous  commission 
merchant  and  manufacturer  of  sake.  This  villa  is  seated 
on  the  mountain's  side  and  is  surrounded  by  as  fine  an  ex- 
ample of  a  certain  style  of  Japanese  gardening  as  I  have 
ever  seen.  Here  is  a  profusion  of  artistic  rock  arrangement, 
decorated  with  shrubs  and  flowers,  for  the  most  part  brought 
from  Japan,  and  marking  out  ponds,  paths,  and  favored 
points  of  view  from  which  can  be  had  glimpses  of  the  charm- 
ing harbor  and  surrounding  hills.  The  owner  was  proud  to 
have  us  know  that  Marquis  Ito  makes  the  villa  his  home 
when  journeying  between  Korea  and  Japan.  Among  other 
objects  of  interest  in  the  garden  is  a  huge  boulder  which  fell 
from  the  mountain's  side  some  twenty  years  ago;  near  this 
the  owner  of  the  garden  has  chosen  his  last  resting-place,  and 
upon  it  the  proper  inscription  has  already  been  prepared. 

After  leaving  the  villa  we  were  shown  over  one  of  the  public 
schools  which  has  been  founded  for  the  children  of  Japanese 


142  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

residents,  and  were  bidden  to  notice  how  its  reports  showed 
the  high  average  attendance  of  from  93  per  cent,  to  98  per 
cent.,  and  even  above,  in  the  different  grades,  for  the  entire 
year.  Next  came  a  visit  to  a  private  school  for  girls,  which 
is  under  the  patronage  of  Japanese  ladies,  and  which  gives 
an  education  of  a  more  distinctly  domestic  type.  Here  we 
were  served  with  an  excellent  luncheon  in  foreign  style, 
cooked  by  the  pupils  of  the  school;  during  and  after  which 
there  was  an  entertainment  consisting  of  tableaux  vivants 
and  a  musical  performance  that  might  best  be  described  as  a 
trio  of  kotos  with  a  violin  obligate.  One  of  these  tableaux 
represented  three  young  girls  defending  a  castle  wall  with 
bow  and  arrow — a  scene  corresponding  to  actual  events  of 
history;  for,  in  fact,  the  loyalty  of  certain  clans  in  the  north 
of  Japan  carried  them  to  such  extremes  in  support  of  the 
Tokugawa  dynasty.  Indeed,  through  many  centuries,  Japan- 
ese women  and  girls  have  been  far  braver  and  more  loyal  in 
defence  of  their  liege  lord  than  Korean  men  have  been. 

From  this  school  we  were  taken  to  the  park  on  the  moun- 
tain, with  its  trees  brought  from  Tsushima  some  two  hundred 
years  ago,  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made  (p.  15) 
as  the  only  one  in  all  Korea.  The  Shinto  temple  upon  the 
hill-top  is  equally  old,  and  was  originally  dedicated  to  no 
fewer  than  nine  different  divinities — the  goddess,  Ama- 
terasu  (the  "  Heaven- Shiner,"  or  Sun-goddess),  born  from 
the  left  eye  of  the  Creator  Izanagi,  whose  principal  shrine  is 
now  at  Ise,  being  the  chief. 

The  lecture  of  the  afternoon  was  given  to  an  audience  of 
about  six  hundred,  upon  a  topic  selected  by  those  who  had 
extended  the  invitation.  This  topic  was  "The  Necessity  of 
an  Improved  Commercial  Morality";  it  was  expected  that 
the  speaker  would  enforce  and  illustrate  the  thought  by  the 
situation  at  the  present  time  in  Korea,  and  by  an  appeal  to 
Japanese  patriotism  to  show  their  nation  worthy  of  setting 


THE   DEPARTURE 


143 


a  good  example,  and  capable  of  accomplishing  the  task  of 
industrial  development  and  political  redemption  in  the  land 
which  was  now  so  dependent  upon  Japan  for  its  future. 
Mrs.  Ladd  also  said  a  few  words  expressing  her  interest  in 
what  we  had  seen  in  the  morning  illustrating  the  education 
given  to  Japanese  girls  in  Fusan,  and  also  the  hope  that 
something  similar  might  soon  be  possible  for  their  Korean 
sisters.  The  heartiness  with  which  these  suggestions  were 
received  in  this,  the  principal  Japanese  settlement  of  the 
Peninsula,  shows  that  the  better  classes  of  settlers  are  honor- 
ably sensitive  to  the  obligation  to  redeem  the  fair  fame  of 
their  nation  from  the  injury  which  it  has  received  in  the  past 
at  the  hands  of  the  inferior  and  baser  elements  of  their  own 
countrymen. 

That  this  determination  was  not  beyond  reasonable  hope 
of  speedy  realization  was  made  more  evident  to  me  by  con- 
versation with  the  agent  of  the  Transportation  Company  oper- 
ating between  Shimonoseki  and  Fusan.  A  careful  investiga- 
tion of  its  records  had  revealed  the  fact  that  for  some  months 
past  about  200  Japanese  passengers  were,  on  the  average, 
daily  coming  into  Korea,  and  only  about  150  returning  from 
Korea  to  Japan.  Of  the  fifty  who,  presumably,  remained 
as  settlers,  about  one-half  chose  for  their  home  either  the 
city  of  Fusan  or  the  surrounding  country;  the  other  half 
went  by  rail  inland,  chiefly  to  Seoul  and  Chemulpo.  There 
had  also  been  of  late  an  obvious  change  in  the  character  and 
intention  of  these  immigrants.  Formerly,  they  were  largely 
young  fellows  of  the  type  of  adventurers;  but  now  the  old 
people,  and  the  women  and  children,  were  coming  with  the 
men — an  indication  that  their  business  was  no  temporary 
venture,  but  a  purpose  to  remain  and  make  homes  for  them- 
selves. When  it  is  understood  that  these  figures  are  ex- 
clusive of  the  Japanese  military  and  civil  officials,  they  com- 
pare very  closely  with  the  results  of  the  census  taken  just 


144  IN  KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

before  our  departure.  On  taking  passage  from  Shimonoseki 
to  Fusan  we  had  noticed  that  the  passengers  which  crowded 
and  overflowed  the  second-  and  third-class  cabin  accommo- 
dations of  the  steamer  appeared  to  be  very  decent  folk. 
Many  of  them  had  brought  along,  not  only  their  luggage,  but 
also  their  agricultural  implements  and  mechanic's  tools. 
But  the  subject  of  Japanese  settlement  in  Korea,  and  its 
effect  upon  both  countries  concerned,  is  so  important  as  to 
deserve  further  discussion  of  such  statistics  as  are  now 
available. 

We  went  on  board  the  Iki  Maru  early  enough  to  avoid  the 
crowd  that  would  come  by  the  afternoon  train  from  Seoul. 
After  bidding  good-by  to  the  score  of  ladies  and  gentlemen 
who  had  come  down  to  the  wharf  to  see  us  off,  there  was 
time  for  dinner  before  the  steamer  sailed.  As  we  watched 
the  retreating  shores  of  Korea,  we  remembered  the  morning 
of  two  months  before  when  these  shores  had  first  come  into 
view.  It  was  Japanese  friends  who  had  then  welcomed  us — 
the  same  friends  who  had  just  bidden  us  farewell.  But  be- 
tween the  two  experiences  lay  a  busy  period  of  work  and  of 
observation  which  had  resulted  in  making  more  friends, 
Japanese  and  foreign,  in  Korea  itself.  But  how  about  the 
Koreans  themselves;  had  we  won,  even  to  the  beginnings  of 
real  and  constant  friendly  feeling,  any  among  their  number  ? 
I  was  unable  confidently  to  say.  The  Koreans  are  spoken 
of,  by  the  missionaries  especially,  as  notably  kind  and  af- 
fectionate in  disposition  and  easily  attached  to  the  foreigner 
by  friendly  ties.  By  the  diplomats  and  business  men  they 
are,  for  the  most  part,  distrusted  and  despised.  As  the 
guests  of  Marquis  Ito,  it  was  not  strange  that  we  did  not 
quickly  gain  any  assurance  of  genuine  and  trustworthy 
friendliness  on  their  part.  But  this,  too,  is  a  subject  which 
requires  consideration  from  a  more  impersonal  point  of  view. 
For  there  is  something  startling  in  the  wide  divergencies,  and 


THE   DEPARTURE  145 

even  sharp  antagonisms,  of  the  estimates  of  Korean  character 
which  any  serious  and  disinterested  inquiry  evokes. 

The  night  of  May  2gth  was  rough,  and  our  ship  rolled  con- 
siderably while  crossing  the  straits  between  Korea  and  Japan. 
But  by  early  morning  we  were  in  smooth  water.  The  like- 
nesses and  the  contrasts  of  the  two  countries  were  even  more 
impressive  than  they  had  been  when  we  first  landed  in 
Fusan  and  passed  on  to  Seoul.  Soil  and  landscape,  as  un- 
modified by  man,  are  in  this  part  of  Japan  almost  exactly 
similar  to  southern  Korea.  Indeed,  geologically  speaking, 
they  are  the  same  continent;  at  one  time  in  the  past  they 
were  doubtless  physically  united.  But  how  different  the  two 
countries  at  the  present  time,',  in  respect  of  all  the  signs  of 
human  activity  and  human  enterprise!  Our  Japanese  com- 
panion explained  the  prosperity  of  this  part  of  his  native  land 
as  growing  out  of  the  nature  of  its  early  history.  Prince 
Mori  was  formerly  lord  of  all  this  part  of  Japan,  nearly  as 
far  eastward  as  Hiogo.  When  driven  by  Hideyoshi  to  its 
western  extremity,  he  had  taken  with  him  a  large  number 
of  his  best  retainers.  Their  support  in  the  two  or  three  dis- 
tricts which  he  was  still  allowed  to  retain  became  at  once  a 
most  difficult  practical  problem.  But  it  was  solved  by 
stimulating  the  farmers  and  the  trading  classes  to  the  highest 
possible  activity  in  improving  the  natural  resources,  which 
were  by  no  means  unusually  great  in  this  part  of  Japan. 
Thus  it  was  the  men  who  made  the  country  rich,  and  not  the 
country  that  made  the  men  rich.  One  other  illustration  of 
the  characteristically  different  spirit  of  the  two  countries  was 
mentioned  in  the  same  connection.  At  one  time  when 
Hideyoshi  was  making  war  upon  Prince  Mori,  he  was  called 
back  by  a  rebellion  in  his  own  rear.  One  of  his  most  de- 
voted friends  and  adherents  had  been  murdered  by  the 
rebels.  Whereupon,  Hideyoshi  summoned  his  enemy,  told 
him  frankly  the  truth  as  to  the  necessity  of  his  abandoning 


146  IN  KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

for  the  present  his  intention  to  deprive  him  of  all  his  domin- 
ions, and  suggested  that  the  time  would  be  opportune  for 
the  Prince  to  recover  much  of  his  lost  ancestral  estate.  But 
Prince  Mori  declined  to  take  advantage  of  Hideyoshi's  neces- 
sity, since  the  latter  was  going,  as  in  knightly-honor  bound, 
to  avenge  the  death  of  a  friend. 

On  coming  to  anchor  in  the  harbor  of  Shimonoseki  we 
found  the  superintendent  of  the  port  ready  with  his  launch 
to  convey  us  to  the  shore.  After  an  hour  at  the  hotel,  during 
which  the  chief  of  police  made  an  official  call  to  pay  his 
respects  and  give  us  additional  assurance  that  we  were  to  be 
well  protected,  we  parked  at  the  train,  with  sincere  regret, 
from  the  Japanese  friend  who  had  so  kindly  arranged  all 
for  our  comfort  during  our  two  months  in  Korea. 

The  appearance  of  the  country  along  the  western  end  of 
the  Sanyo  Railway  on  this  last  day  of  May,  1907,  fully  con- 
firmed the  account  of  the  character  and  the  policy  of  the  men 
who,  since  the  time  of  Hideyoshi,  have  developed  it.  The 
views  of  the  sea  on  the  right-hand  side  of  the  train  cannot 
easily  be  surpassed  anywhere  in  the  world.  On  the  other 
side,  the  fields  in  the  valleys,  and- the  terraces  on  the  hills, 
constitute  one  almost  continuous,  highly  cultivated  garden 
for  more  than  one  hundred  miles.  The  tops  of  the  mountains, 
except  in  a  few  unfavorable  spots,  are  covered  with  forests  of 
thickly-set  and  varied  arborage.  The  comparatively  damp 
climate  of  Japan  covers  with  that  exquisite  soft  haze  which 
the  Japanese  artists  appreciate  so  highly  and  reproduce  so 
well,  the  same  kind  of  soil  and  of  rocks  which  shine  out  so 
bright  and  strong  in  their  coloring  across  the  straits  in  Korea. 

In  the  train,  my  next  neighbor  on  my  right — a  big  German 
who  smoked  strong  cigars  incessantly,  and  who  said  that  he 
had  been  in  the  Orient  for  forty  years — declared  unhesitatingly 
that  the  people  of  Japan,  outside  of  a  certain  portion  of  a 
few  cities  where  foreign  influences  had  operated  most  strongly, 


THE   DEPARTURE  147 

were  all  savages  to-day,  as  they  were  when  the  country  was 
first  opened  to  Western  civilization.  When  he  was  reminded 
that  the  percentage  of  children  in  actual  attendance  in  the 
public  schools  was  much  larger  than  in  the  United  States,  and 
at  least  equal  to  the  most  favored  parts  of  Germany,  he  re- 
plied that  the  children  were  never  really  being  taught  in 
school,  but  always  to  be  seen  out  of  doors,  going  through 
some  kind  of  "  fanatics  "  or  gymnastics !  It  is  no  wonder  that 
this  comment  elicited  no  reply.  But  the  picture  of  the  more 
than  a  score  of  thousands  of  eager  and  attentive  teachers  and 
students  to  whom  I  had  spoken — not  by  way  of  occasional, 
popular  speeches,  but  in  courses  of  lectures  and  addresses  on 
serious  themes — left  me  unconvinced.  Nor  was  the  remark 
attributed  to  the  inferior  insight  of  his  own  nation,  whose 
scholastic  training  for  diplomatic  service  has  been  superior  to 
that  of  other  countries,  and  whose  commercial  education  is 
fast  approaching  the  same  grade  of  excellence.  But  it  was 
another  lesson  in  the  purely  external  and  untrustworthy 
character  of  the  prevailing  knowledge  of  the  Far  East,  its 
people,  their  excellences  and  their  faults;  and,  per  contra, 
of  the  only  way  reasonably  to  estimate  and  effectually  to 
attain  friendly  relations  with  men  in  general  and  with  Oriental 
peoples  in  particular.  The  views  of  the  "old  resident" — 
missionary,  diplomat,  or  business  man — as  such,  are  of  little 
or  no  value.  This  is  especially  true  as  touching  the  rela- 
tions of  Japan  and  Korea. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PERSONAL  REMINISCENCES   AND  IMPRESSIONS 

BEFORE  leaving  Seoul  I  ventured  to  send  to  His  Imperial 
Majesty  of  Korea,  through  one  of  his  most  intimate,  de- 
voted, and  consistent  friends  of  long  standing,  a  message 
that  should  embody  some  of  my  impressions  regarding  his 
own  best  interests  and  the  essential  conditions  for  the  future 
welfare  of  his  country.  I  had  already  frequently  addressed 
his  people  with  great  plainness,  relying  upon  an  implied  con- 
fidence in  the  sincerity  of  their  monarch's  words,  spoken  at 
the  time  of  my  audience  at  the  Court.  It  will  be  remembered 
(see  p.  46)  that  the  Emperor  had  then  said:  "He  was  glad 
to  learn  I  had  come  to  instruct  his  people  in  right  ways"; 
"he  hoped  they  would  open  their  minds  to  enlightenment 
and  to  modern  ideas";  he  wished  "my  addresses  would  con- 
tribute to  their  progress."  The  speaker  had,  therefore,  not 
only  royal  permission  but  that  request,  which,  according  to 
the  etiquette  of  this  and  other  Eastern  courts,  is  the  equiva- 
lent of  a  command,  when  he  warned  his  Korean  audiences 
that  the  real  prosperity  of  their  country  could  not  be  obtained 
by  intrigue  and  assassination,  but  only  by  cultivating  the 
industries  and  arts,  by  improving  education,  and  by  regulat- 
ing their  conduct  according  to  the  unchanging  principles  of 
a  pure  morality  and  a  truly  spiritual  religion.  Moreover,  it 
should  be  remembered  that,  while  Oriental  monarchs  are 
accustomed  to  think  of  themselves  as  entitled  to  rule  without 
regard  to  constitutional  restrictions  and  in  defiance  of  control 


REMINISCENCES  AND   IMPRESSIONS       149 

by  any  legal  code,  the  Confucian  ethics  requires  them  to 
submit  patiently  to  rebuke  and  exhortation,  on  moral  grounds. 
It  also  exalts  the  position  of  the  teacher. of  practical  philosophy 
(or  ethics)  to  the  highest  rank  in  the  service  of  the  State. 
Nor  had  I  forgotten  the  earnest  words  of  the  aged  Japanese 
physician  at  a  banquet  held  on  the  evening  of  the  preceding 
nth  of  February,  in  the  city  of  Osaka,  by  which  the  one 
hundred  and  fifty  leading  citizens  assembled  there  were  re- 
minded that,  when  the  ancient  Oriental  teacher  and  the 
modern  teacher  from  the  West  agree  in  the  doctrine — "It  is 
righteousness  which  exalteth  a  nation" — their  agreement 
is  significant  of  the  important  conclusion  that  the  doctrine  is 
true.  It  did  not  seem  improper,  therefore,  to  call  his  Maj- 
esty's attention  to  the  rocks  just  ahead,  directly  for  which, 
under  the  piloting  of  evil  domestic  and  foreign  counsellors, 
he  was  steering  the  ship  of  State. 

The  message  emphasized  especially  the  following  par- 
ticulars. Inasmuch  as  Japan  had  already  fought  one  in- 
ternal and  two  foreign  wars,  at  a  cost  of  millions  of  treasure 
and  thousands  of  lives,  on  account  of  the  political  weakness 
and  misrule  of  Korea,  it  could  not  possibly,  with  a  wise  regard 
either  for  its  own  interests  or  for  those  of  the  Korean  people 
themselves,  allow  the  repetition  of  similarly  disastrous 
events.  The  two  nations  must  learn  to  live  together  in 
amity  and  with  their  common  interests  guarded  against  in- 
vasion and  injury  from  without.  History  had  amply  shown 
that  this  end  could  not  be  secured  under  existing  conditions 
by  Korea  alone.  The  most  sacred  obligations,  not  only  of 
self-interest,  but  also  of  a  truly  wise  regard  for  the  Emperor 
and  his  subjects,  bound  the  Japanese  Government  to  estab- 
lish and  maintain  its  protectorate  over  Korea. 

Further:  no  foreign  nation,  least  of  all  my  own,  whose 
constitution  and  traditional  practice  forbade  such  a  thing, 
was  at  all  likely  to  intervene  between  Japan  and  Korea. 


150          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Those  counsellors  who  had  led  him  to  hope  for  such  inter- 
vention were  deceiving  him;  and  the  money  which  he  had 
contributed  to  their  schemes  was  not  simply  spent  in  vain ; 
it  was  beguiled  from  him  to  his  own  hurt  and  to  the  great 
injury  of  his  own  people,  who  needed  that  every  yen  of  it 
should  be  judiciously  expended  upon  developing  the  resources 
of  the  country  and  improving  their  own  material  condition.. 

From  these  points  of  view,  which  had  regard  chiefly,  or 
even  solely,  to  the  interests  of  the  crown  and  the  Korean 
nation,  I  regarded  the  Resident- General  as  Korea's  best 
friend;  and  also — if  the  Emperor  would  have  it  so — his  own 
best  friend.  Of  Marquis  Ito's  sincere  and  intelligent  in- 
terest in  Korea,  no  one  who  knew  him  could  have  the  slight- 
est doubt;  the  Emperor  must  see  that  the  Marquis,  as 
Resident-General,  was  in  a  position  of  power.  To  act  truth- 
fully and  sincerely  in  his  relations  with  this  powerful  friend, 
and  to  co-operate  with  his  endeavors  at  the  improvement  of 
the  national  condition,  would,  then,  be  his  own  best  way  to 
secure  for  his  people  "instruction  in  right  ways,"  "the  open- 
ing of  their  minds  to  enlightenment  and  modern  ideas,"  and 
an  effective  "contribution  to  their  progress." 

Moreover,  it- must  be  remembered  that  there  had  been  for 
centuries,  and  there  were  still,  two  parties  in  Japan,  with 
reference  to  the  proper  treatment  of  Korea.  One  was  the 
party  which  favored  friendship  between  the  two  countries 
and  a  peaceful  development  of  the  interests  so  important  to 
them  both;  the  other  was  the  party  of  the  strong  hand,  which 
was  always  urging  the  immediate  application  of  the  most 
drastic  measures.  If  it  seemed  desirable  at  any  time  for 
Japan  to  do  so,  the  latter  party  was  ready  for  subjugation  of 
the  country  by  the  military  and  for  putting  it  under  military 
control.  Marquis  Ito  had  always  been  one  of  the  foremost 
leaders  of  the  party  of  peace;  he  had  indeed  risked  not  only 
his  reputation  as  a  far-seeing  statesman,  but  even  his  per- 


REMINISCENCES  AND   IMPRESSIONS       151 

sonal  safety  and  his  life,  in .  behalf  of  the  peaceful  policy. 
Let  His  Majesty  carefully  reflect  upon  what  it  would  mean 
for  him  and  for  his  country  for  the  present  peaceful  plans  of 
the  Japanese  Government,  under  the  present  Resident- 
General,  to  prove  unavailing  for  their  difficult  task. 

But  if  His  Majesty  continued  to  fail  of  an  appreciation  of 
the  real  situation,  if  he  persisted  in  trusting  those  who  were 
deceiving  him  with  vain  hopes  and  robbing  him  and  the  nation 
of  its  resources  and  its  opportunity,  I  had  the  gravest  fears 
that  ruin  would  follow  for  him  and  for  his  house;  'and  then 
great  increase  of  trouble  for  the  people  of  the  land.  All  this 
I  wished  to  say  to  him,  not  at  all  as  a  politician  or  as  a  diplo- 
mat, but  as  a  teacher  of  morals  and  an  observer  of  human 
affairs.  Nor  did  I  speak  on  account  of  my  friendship  for 
Marquis  Ito  simply;  and  not  at  all  by  His  Excellency's 
instigation  or  request.  I  was  moved  by  a  sincere  desire  to 
see  Korea  really  prosperous  and,  if  it  might  be  so,  to  con- 
tribute in  some  small  way  to  the  instruction,  enlightenment, 
and  progress  of  its  people. 

This  message  was  in  due  time  faithfully  transmitted  to 
the  Emperor  of  Korea,  and  was  listened  to  with  attention  and 
apparently  with  the  same  friendly  spirit  with  which  it  was 
sent.  Its  reception  was  followed  by  the  "sincere  (?)  prom- 
ise to  heed  its  injunctions  and  with  a  protestation  of  respect 
and  affection  for  Marquis  Ito."  This  is  His  Majesty's  habit 
when  he  is  not  excited  for  the  moment  by  the  passions  of 
anger  or  fear.  "In  at  one  ear  and  out  at  the  other" — such 
is  the  description  which  those  who  have  had  most  experience 
with  this  monarch  testify  as  to  the  real  effect  upon  him  of 
all  such  advice.  If  any  honest  intention  is  ever  really  formed 
to  keep  the  promises,  to  be  true  to  the  protestations  and 
pledges  made  on  such  occasions,  it  is  habitually  scattered  to 
the  winds  by  the  next  impure  breath  which  blows  upon  him. 
A  master  of  intrigue  himself  (an  intrigue  of  the  Korean  type 


152  IN  KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

which  combines  as,  perhaps,  nowhere  else  in  the  world  the 
unmixed  elements  of  a  tenuous  subtlety  and  a  fatuous  silli- 
ness), the  Emperor  of  Korea  is  also  the  victim  and  willing 
subject  of  intriguing  eunuchs,  concubines,  sorceresses,  Yang- 
bans,  and  unscrupulous  and  unsavory  foreign  adventurers. 
From  his  point  of  view,  his  missionary  physician  is  his  spy; 
and,  from  the  same  point  of  view,  the  guest  of  Marquis  Ito 
was,  as  a  matter  of  course,  suspected  of  being  a  spy — in  the 
one  case  in  behalf  of,  in  the  other  case  against,  his 'cherished 
interests.  And  these  interests  are  not  the  welfare  of  his 
country,  or  even  those  more  important  and  lasting  interests 
that  concern  his  own  crown  and  the  perpetuation  of  the 
royal  house.  They  are  sensuous  and  personal.  Yet  this 
complex  character  is  truthfully  described  as  amiable,  kindly 
by  preference,  and  ready  to  smile  upon  and  give  gifts  to  all. 
But  this,  too,  is  a  problem  which  requires  further  considera- 
tion, as  one  of  interest  from  the  psychologist's  point  of  view  not 
only,  but  also  and  chiefly,  from  the  point  of  view  which  regards 
the  social  and  political  relations  of  Japan  and  Korea.  At  the 
time  my  message  was  delivered,  and  even  before  it  was  sent, 
the  fatal  mistake  of  sending  a  Commission  to  The  Hague 
had  been  made.  In  the  case  of  monarchs  and  of  nations, 
as  in  the  case  of  common  folk — individuals  and  communities 
— there  are  promises  sincerely  made,  but  made  too  late,  and 
penitence  which  follows  but  does  not  anticipate  and  prevent 
the  last  fatal  consequences  of  years  of  folly  and  of  crime. 

To  these  results  of  my  observations  in  Korea  the  following 
particulars  should  be  added  in  this  place.  As  has  just  been 
indicated,  one  of  the  strongest  and  most  fixed  impressions 
made  was  that  of  the  well-nigh  hopeless  corruption  of  the 
Korean  Court.  Of  intrigue  and  corruption  there  is  doubt- 
less enough  in  all  courts,  especially  in  those  of  Oriental 
countries.  Nor  are  these  evils  by  any  means  absent  from  the 
political  centres  of  Republican  Governments,  whether  of  the 


REMINISCENCES   AND   IMPRESSIONS       153 

national  or  local  character.  But  the  intrigue  and  corruption 
of  the  Korean  Court  are  of  a  peculiarly  despicable  and,  in- 
deed, intolerable  character.  The  premises  in  which  it  is 
housed  at  present  are  entirely  lacking  in  any  appearance  of 
dignity;  are,  indeed,  almost  squalid.  In  a  commonplace  brick 
building  were  lodged  the  Emperor,  the  Crown  Prince,  Lady 
Om,  the  little  Prince  her  son,  and  an  innumerable  number 
of  court  officials,  court  ladies,  and  eunuchs.  The  Cabinet 
Ministers  in  attendance  during  the  night  await  the  Imperial 
pleasure  in  a  Korean  house  near  the  courtyard,  in  rooms 
hardly  larger  than  horse-stalls.  At  times  the  contents  of  the 
cesspools,  in  close  proximity  to  the  main  palace  gates,  offend 
both  eyes  and  nose.  So  often  as  the  rigorous  inspection  of 
the  foreign  lady  in  control  of  such  affairs  is  relaxed,  the  filth 
in  the  apartments  themselves  begins  to  accumulate.  Gifts 
to  His  Majesty,  in  value  all  the  way  from  expensive  screens 
to  baskets  of  fruit,  are  appropriated  by  the  court  rabble  to 
their  own  uses.  Dishes,  and  even  chairs,  are  often  stolen  by 
the  lackeys  and  coolies  at  the  Imperial  garden-parties.  Yet 
there  is  a  marvellous  display  of  gorgeous  uniforms  worn  by 
the  court  functionaries;  and  these  functionaries  are  nu- 
merous enough  to  cover  all  the  usual  bureaus,  ceremonies, 
decorations,  and  offices  really  existing  or  imaginary,  with 
the  customary  crowd  of  masters  of  ceremony  and  chamber- 
lains thought  needful  for  the  courts  of  the  largest  and 
wealthiest  nations.  At  the  time  of  the  disbandment  of  the 
army,  thirty  generals  and  only  ten  colonels  constituted  the 
corps  of  officers  in  command. 

All  these  appointments  have  hitherto  been  dependent  on 
the  "gracious  favor"  of  His  Majesty  and  have  been  dispensed 
without  regard  to  moral  character  or  any  form  of  fitness,  or 
to  the  real  interests  of  the  nation.  Indeed,  it  is  no  exaggera- 
tion to  say  that  they  have  often  been  sold  to  those  who  offered 
the  highest  percentage  of  squeezes  for  the  outstretched  royal 


154          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  IT(3 

hand.  To  secure  them,  access  to  the  ear  of  the  Emperor  is 
indispensable  in  most  cases.  Not  a  few  of  the  most  low- 
lived and  unscrupulous  of  his  subjects  and  of  foreigners  have 
been  recipients  of  royal  favors  in  this  way.  To  quote  the 
words  of  one  who  knows:  "Now  it  was  the  interpreter  of  a 
foreign  legation,  now  a  common  police  spy,  now  a  minister  or 
ex-minister  of  State,  and  now  some  comparatively  humble 
member  of  the  Imperial  entourage.  The  soothsayers,  geo- 
mancers,  and  others  of  that  ilk,  were  always  present,  and 
frequently  influential  in  devising  grotesque  schemes  which 
spelled  profit  to  themselves  and  to  other  hangers-on  of  the 
court.  But  the  most  constant  influence  at  court  of  late 
years  was  that  exercised  by  some  of  the'^unuchs.  '  Ajmong 
these,  the  chief  eunuch  Kang,  was  probably  the  most  power- 
ful. He  grew  rich  upon  the  perquisites  of  office,  and  would 
undoubtedly  be  flourishing  still,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
famous,  house-cleaning  which  the -court  underwent  some  time 
ago.  He  then  fled,  and  report  has  it  (seemingly  with  good 
reason)  that  he  was  harbored  nearly  two  weeks  for  a  sub- 
stantial consideration,  in  the  house  of  a  foreigner  connected 
in  a  subordinate  capacity  with  an  American  business  con- 
cern. When  in  his  heyday  he  exercised  great  personal  in- 
fluence with  the  Emperor,  and  there  are  well  authenticated 
instances  of  cabinet  ministers  having  bribed  him  in  order  to 
secure  access  to  the  Imperial  presence." 

It  should  also  be  remembered  that  this  state  of  things  in  the 
Court  of  Korea  was  not  at  all  in  spite  of  the  Emperor,  but 
was  rather  of  his  own  choosing.  Indeed,  his  character  and 
habit  of  conducting  his  Imperial  office  was  the  principal 
effective  reason  for  the  perpetuation  of  such  corruption. 
The  signs  of  this  stream  of  evil  influence  are  by  no  means  all 
concealed.  Every  day  of  my  stay  in  Seoul  I  was  witness  to 
the  line  of  jinrikishas,  and  the  procession  of  pedestrians- 
many  of  a  by  no  means  prepossessing  appearance — along 


REMINISCENCES  AND   IMPRESSIONS       155 

the  lane  on  which  stands  the  gate  through  which  those  seek- 
ing audience  were  passing  in  to  the  palace  enclosure.  As  to 
foreigners  who,  in  person,  are  introduced  to  the  Emperor, 
the  Japanese  Government  had  then  a  practically  efficient 
control.  But  for  Korean  subjects,  and  for  foreigners  using 
Koreans  to  further  their  schemes,  there  was  at  that  time 
still  abundant  access.  And  the  number  of  those  who  visited 
this  "prisoner  in  his  palace"  was  frequently  advertised  in  the 
daily  news  as  counted  by  scores  and  by  hundreds.  To  leave 
his  "prison"  and  go  out  upon  the  streets  of  Seoul  otherwise 
than  on  those  rare  ceremonial  occasions  when  everything  is 
prepared  beforehand,  would  have  been  for  His  Majesty  to 
break  with  the  etiquette  of  centuries.  Now,  however,  that 
the  Japanese  are  in  much  more  complete  control,  the  free- 
dom of  the  Emperor's  movements  is  greatly  enlarged. 

I  shall  not  easily  forget  how  the  contrast  between  the  new 
forces  of  spiritual  uplift  and  the  old  forces  of  intellectual  and 
moral  degradation  came  over  me,  as  I  was  present  one  Sun- 
day at  the  morning  service  of  the  Methodist  church,  which 
stands  just  across  the  way  from  the  palace  enclosure.  The 
combined  congregations  gathered  here  numbered  an  audience 
of  more  than  one  thousand,  nearly  one  half  of  which  were 
children.  Bishop  Ross  preached  a  short  and  simple  sermon, 
Dr.  Jones  interpreting.  Several  of  the  American  delegates 
to  the  great  missionary  Conference  in  China,  on  their  way 
homeward,  were  present,  surprised  and  rejoicing  in  the  size 
and  enthusiasm  of  the  Korean  multitude  of  hearers.  The 
girls  from  one  of  the  schools  patronized  by  Lady  Orn  (whose 
true  history  is  told  in  Mr.  Angus  Hamilton's  book,  and  who  is 
now  euphemously  styled  the  "Emperor's  consort"),  which 
had  recently  been  complained  of  by  the  English  edition  of  the 
Korean  Daily  News  for  "being  used  to  foster  allegiance  to 
Japan,"  were  singing  "I  surrender  all  to  Jesus."  But  what 
was  then  being  done  a  few  yards  distant,  just  over  the  palace 


156          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

wall,  where  were  living  a  collection  of  as  vulgar,  ignorant, 
corrupt,  and  murderous  men  and  women  as  were  to  be  found 
anywhere  in  so-called  "  heathendom  "? 

How  the  intrigue  and  deceitfulness,  combined  with  weak- 
ness, of  the  Korean  Emperor  and  his  Korean  and  foreign 
friends,  terminated  with  the  commission  to  The  Hague  Peace 
Conference  is  now  a  matter  of  history.  As  such,  it  de- 
mands a  further  study  in  its  historical  origins  and  historical 
setting. 

The  impression  which  I  received  as  to  the  capacity  and 
character  of  the  Korean  official  and  Yang-ban  (or  " gentry") 
class  was,  on  the  whole,  not  reassuring  in  regard  to  their  real 
willingness  or  ability  to  inaugurate  and  support  govern- 
mental and  industrial  reforms  in  Korea.  It  is  indeed  diffi- 
cult for  one  born  and  fostered  under  an  Occidental — and, 
perhaps,  especially  an  American — system  of  civilization 
justly  to  appreciate  the  institutions  and  the  personal  charac- 
teristics of  the  men  of  the  Orient.  Of  this  difficulty  I  had 
had  an  initial  experience  on  my  first  visit  to  Japan  fifteen 
years  ago.  Repeated  visits  to  Japan,  and  intimate  inter- 
course with  Japanese  of  various  classes,  together  with  pains- 
taking observation  of  the  people,  had  enabled  me  to  overcome 
this  difficulty  to  a  considerable  extent,  so  far  as  the  Land  of 
the  Rising  Sun  is  concerned.  But,  as  has  already  been  in- 
dicated, Old  Japan  was  really  more  like  Mediaeval  Europe 
in  many  of  its  most  essential  psychological  and  social  charac- 
teristics, than  like  either  modern  India,  or  China,  or  Korea. 
A  winter  spent  in  travel  and  lecturing  rather  widely  over 
India  was  of  more  important  service  in  coming  to  an  under- 
standing of  the  upper  classes  in  Korea.  This,  too,  is  insuffi- 
cient for  a  standard  of  comparison.  With  the  high-caste 
Hindu  a  Westerner  of  reflective  mind  will,  of  course,  have 
many  intellectual  interests  in  common.  With  the  Korean 
Yang-ban,  except  in  the  very  rarest  cases,  there  can  be  no 


REMINISCENCES   AND   IMPRESSIONS       157 

common  interests  of  this  kind.  The  problems  of  life  and 
destiny,  the  Being  of  God,  the  constitution  of  the  universe, 
the  fundamental  principles  of  ethics,  politics,  and  law  are  of 
little  concern  to  him.  It  is  doubtful,  indeed,  whether  it  has 
ever  dawned  upon  his  mind  that  there  are  such  questions 
worthy  of  patient  consideration  by  the  reflective  powers.  A 
few,  but  a  few  only — such,  at  any  rate,  was  the  impression 
made  upon  me — have  a  genuine,  unselfish,  and  fairly  intel- 
ligent sentiment  of  patriotism  as  distinguished  from  a  desire 
to  use  office  and  influence  for  the  promotion  of  their  own  self- 
interested  ends.  And  these  few — even  that  still  smaller 
number  who  to  the  sentiment  of  patriotism  add  manly 
courage,  strength  of  purpose,  and  readiness  to  suffer — are 
incapable  of  combining  their  forces  so  as  to  carry  through 
in  their  own  land  any  policy  to  secure  the  most  imperatively 
needed  reforms.  After  discussing  this  matter  repeatedly 
with  one  of  Korea's  most  appreciative  and  respected  foreign 
friends,  I  forced  him  to  this  admission:  namely,  there  were 
not,  then,  so  far  as  he  knew,  two  leaders  of  men  in  all  Korea 
who  could  come  together,  trust  each  other,  agree  together, 
and  stand  together,  to  fight  and  work  for  the  good  of  their 
country  to  the  bitter  end.  Moreover,  had  it  been  possible  to 
find  two,  or  even  twenty,  such  strong  and  trusted  political 
leaders,  under  his  late  Majesty  and  the  unpurged  court  of 
his  rule,  the  reformers  could  not  have  escaped  exile  or  as- 
sassination, so  far  as  Majesty  and  Court  were  permitted  to 
have  their  own  way.  Indeed,  it  was  during  all  that  spring 
only  the  determined  purpose  of  the  Japanese  Government, 
as  administered  by  Marquis  Ito,  that  made  possible  the  in- 
auguration and  progress  of  any  measure  of  reform.  It  was 
the  same  wise  policy  that  stood  between  the  Emperor  and  a 
fate  similar  to  that  endured  by  his  royal  consort  at  dawn  of 
October  8,  1895.  And  only  after  his  friend,  the  Resident- 
General,  hoping  for  a  long  time  against  the  repeated  viola- 


158  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

tion  of  the  grounds  of  hope,  had  reached  the  sad  conclusion 
that  the  Emperor's  "  disease  was  incurable,"  and  that  the 
vital  interests  of  Korea  as  well  as  of  Japan  demanded  the 
termination  of  his  unfortunate  and  disgraceful  career,  did 
the  event  take  place.  Even  then,  however,  it  was  forced  by 
his  own  cabinet  ministers. 

As  to  the  general  character  of  the  administration  of  the 
magistrates  throughout  the  country  of  Korea,  in  the  winter 
and  spring  of  1906  and  1907,  there  can  be  no  difference  of 
intelligent  opinion.  It  was  essentially  the  same  which  it  had 
been  for  hundreds  of  years.  With  rare  exceptions,  which 
were  liable  to  make  the  magistrate  suspected  and  traduced 
to  the  Emperor  and  his  court,  the  local  jurisdiction  in  Korea 
was  a  system  of  squeezes  and  acts  of  oppression,  capable  of 
classification  only  under  two  important  specific  differences. 
These  differences  were,  first,  the  marks  of  strength  and  cor- 
ruption combined  with  cruelty,  and,  second,  of  weakness  and 
corruption  without  obvious  cruelty.  The  following  extracts 
from  the  Korean  Daily  News — the  paper  which  (with  its 
native  edition)  Mr.  Hulbert  and  Mr.  Bethell,  its  editor,  were 
employing  to  excite  foreign  and  native  opposition  to  the 
Japanese — are  only  a  small  number  of  the  items  of  news  on 
which  this  impression  was  based: 

As  a  high  official  was  passing  through  the  streets  heavily  guarded, 
a  number  of  men  belonging  to  the  chain-gang  were  passed.  One 
of  them  was  heard  to  remark  that  if  the  official  were  not  a  criminal 
himself  he  would  not  need  the  heavy  guard,  and  he  added  that 
after  his  term  of  penal  labor  was  over  the  first  thing  he  would  do 
would  be  to  kill  that  official  and  a  few  more  like  him.  These 
words  were  heard  by  all  and  they  continued  until  the  minister 
was  out  of  sight. 

A  man  of  Ma-chun  (near  Chemulpo)  was  recently  arrested  by 
order  of  the  local  magistrate  and  tortured  without  cause.  After 
confinement  and  torture  for  a  period  of  eight  days  the  man  ex- 


REMINISCENCES  AND   IMPRESSIONS       159 

pired  and  his  relatives  are  now  asking  the  Supreme  Court  to  look 
into  the  matter  and  punish  the  magistrate. 

A  report  from  South  Chul-la  Province  states  that  the  people  in 
a  certain  section  there  do  not  look  with  favor  on  the  new  tax- 
collectors;  on  the  contrary,  they  say  that  they  will  tie  up  the 
collectors  with  ropes  and  make  life  hard  for  them. 

A  Japanese  report  from  the  far  Northeast  says  that  a  band  of 
500  Koreans  attacked  the  Japanese  at  Whang-hai-po  and  some 
people  were  wounded  by  the  Koreans;  they  were  repulsed  by 
Japanese  gendarmes  from  Kyung-heung. 

On  Tuesday  evening  over  250  rioters  marched  down  on  Neung- 
chon  district,  broke  down  the  telegraph  poles,  and  attacked  the 
people.  The  matter  was  reported  to  the  police  and  many  were 
despatched  to  the  scene  of  the  outbreak.  The  rioters,  however, 
had  dispersed  before  they  could  be  arrested. 

We  hope  it  is  not  true,  as  the  Koreans  report,  that  the  Governor 
of  Chung- ju  has  eaten  the  money  which  the  Emperor  gave  for  the 
relief  of  the  sufferers  from  the  flood  there  last  autumn.  He  is 
said  to  have  gone  even  further  than  this  and  compelled  these 
destitute  people  to  give  their  time  for  nothing  to  public  works. 
This  is  worth  looking  into. 

An  armed  band  of  robbers  made  a  raid  on  the  road-repairing 
bureau  at  Chin-nampo  the  other  day  and  carried  away  consider- 
able property.  In  the  struggle  the  Japanese  engineer  and  two 
Korean  officers  were  severely  wounded. 

It  is  time  that  serious  steps  were  taken  to  put  down  the  brigand- 
age that  prevails  in  the  country.  No  one's  property  appears  to  be 
safe,  for  we  now  learn  that  the  Dongak  Sa  monastery  in  Kong  Chu 
district  has  been  rushed  by  robbers  and  pillaged  of  everything 
that  was  at  all  valuable. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  these  instances  of  disturb- 
ance in  the  provinces  are  rare  and  selected  from  a  long 
period  of  time.  Indeed,  fully  one-half  as  many  instances, 
illustrative  of  the  condition  of  things  prevalent  in  the  country 
districts  of  Korea  as  have  been  given  above,  might  have  been 
taken  from  single  issues  of  this  morning  paper.  So  true  is. 


160  IN   KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS  ITO 

this  that  its  daily  column  headed  "Local  News  and  Com- 
ment," called  out  an  ironical  article  from  the  Japanese  semi- 
official paper,  the  Seoul  Press,  entitled  "Speak  Well  of  Your 
Friends."  In  this  article  was  the  assertion:  "A  digest  of 
its  issues  (i.  e.,  of  the  Korean  Daily  News)  for  one  month,  as 
far  as  they  relate  to  the  Koreans,  would  indicate  that  outside 
Seoul  every  third  Korean  was  a  bandit,  while  in  Seoul  every 
other  man  was  either  a  traitor  or  corrupt.  This  hardly  ap- 
pears to  be  the  way  to  establish  a  good  reputation  for  the 
Koreans."  One  needs,  however,  to  know  only  a  little  as  to 
the  proper  reading  between  the  lines,  in  order  to  discover 
that  the  real  reason  why  there  was  a  dearth  of  good  news, 
of  importance  enough  to  print,  in  this  anti- Japanese  paper 
was  this:  almost  all  such  items  would  have  accrued  to  the 
credit  of  the  Japanese  Administration.  Such  items  would, 
therefore,  bring  into  too  strong  contrast,  to  suit  these  foreign 
friends  of  Korea,  the  traditional  ways  and  results  of  the 
Korean  Government  and  the  already  manifest  effects  of  the 
reforms  that  were  being  carried  through  by  the  Resident- 
General  and  his  Japanese  and  Korean  helpers. 

The  news  from  the  country,  as  given  by  the  pro- Japanese 
press  did  not  differ  from  that  given  by  this  anti- Japanese 
paper  from  which  extracts  have  already  been  made.  The 
former,  however,  dwelt  much  more  upon  the  changes  for  the 
better  which  were  being  accomplished,  chiefly  at  Seoul,  but 
also  in  other  cities  and  even  in  the  country  districts.  The 
following  extracts,  selected  from  a  number  of  similar  items, 
will  show  this  statement  to  be  true.  Says  the  Seoul  Press: 

A  report  received  in  the  Police  Adviser's  Office  here  on  Monday 
night  states  that  a  body  of  rioters  assaulted  and  set  on  fire  seven 
buildings  of  the  District  officials  of  Ko-syong,  South  Kyong-sang- 
do.  The  officials  have  all  taken  refuge  in  Chin-nampo,  and  two 
leaders  of  the  rioters  were  arrested.  The  rioters,  however,  show 
no  signs  of  dispersing.  All  foreigners  and  the  police  are  said  to  be 


REMINISCENCES  AND   IMPRESSIONS       161 

safe,  but  there  were  some  casualties  on  the  side  of  the  rioters. 
According  to  a  later  report  received  here  from  Vice-Resident 
Wada  at  Masan,  the  rioters  assembled  numbered  some  1,500. 
Grievances  in  connection  with  taxation  were  the  immediate  cause 
of  the  trouble.  On  the  night  of  the  6th  instant  the  mob  stormed 
the  office  of  the  District  Magistrate  and  destroyed  the  jail,  liberat- 
ing all  prisoners  within.  In  addition,  they  burned  down  seven 
buildings  of  the  district  officials,  and  some  people  were  seriously 
injured.  Police  Inspector  Nakagawa's  men,  in  conjunction  with 
the  twenty  troops  told  off  from  Chin-nampo,  succeeded  in  arrest- 
ing three  rebel  leaders.  The  District  Magistrate  escaped,  and  all 
the  Japanese  are  safe.  The  disturbance  has  not  yet  been  sup- 
pressed. 

Still  another  item  from  the  Seoul  Press  narrates  a  similar 
experience : 

Disquietude  of  a  somewhat  serious  nature  is  reported  from 
Kim-hai,  under  the  Fusan  Residency.  About  six  o'clock  in  the 
morning  of  the  i4th  inst.,  the  Residency  of  Fusan  received  a 
message  from  Kim-hai  to  the  effect  that  a  number  of  Koreans 
were  threatening  to  storm  the  District  Office  on  account  of  some 
grievance  connected  with  taxation.  Several  policemen  were  at 
once  despatched  to  the  scene  of  trouble,  where  they  found  a  crowd 
of  natives  actively  rioting.  The  latter  broke  open  the  prison,  set 
all  its  inmates  free  and,  far  from  yielding  to  the  advice  of  the 
policemen  to  disperse,  offered  obstinate  resistance.  The  police- 
men found  the  odds  hopelessly  great,  and  decided  to  ask  for  re- 
enforcements.  About  this  time  there  arrived  a  force  of  our  gen- 
darmes who  hastened  to  the  disturbed  scene  on  receipt  of  the 
news  that  Mr.  Lyang  Hong-muk,  the  Magistrate  of  Kim-hai  Dis- 
trict, had  been  taken  prisoner  by  the  rioters,  and  that  our  police 
force  from  Kui-po,  having  attempted  to  recover  the  Magistrate, 
were  suffering  from  the  violence  of  the  furious  mob.  The  mob, 
however,  successfully  checked  the  advance  of  the  gendarmes  for 
some  time  by  the  free  use  of  cudgels  and  other  weapons.  In  the 
meantime,  Mr.  Lyang  was  carried  away  by  the  mob  and  his  where- 
abouts is  still  unknown,  Police  re-enforcements  subsequently  ar- 


162  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

rived,  and  ordered  the  rioters  to  go  home,  but  in  vain.  It  is 
stated  that  the  situation  is  assuming  a  more  serious  aspect.  A 
joint  force  of  our  gendarmes  and  policemen  was  despatched  from 
Fusan  early  on  the  morning  of  the  i5th  inst.  Reports  conflict 
about  the  number  of  rioters,  but  it  is  believed  that  they  are  some 
400. 

All  this,  and  similar  experiences,  as  well  as  the  history  of 
the  Korean  people  for  two  thousand  years,  raises  the  serious 
question  of  the  possibility  of  a  truly  national  redemption. 
Both  before  and  during  my  visit  to  Seoul  I  was  given  to 
understand  by  foreign  residents,  Japanese  and  European, 
that  the  case  of  the  nation  is  hopeless;  their  whole  social  and 
political  system  is  decadent;  they  are  an  effete  race,  destined 
to  give  way  before  the  invasion  of  members  from  any  more 
vigorous  race.  But  Marquis  Ito  evidently  entertained  no 
such  view.  It  was  the  Korean  nation  which  he  desired  to 
rescue  and  to  lift  up — whether  with,  or  without,  the  consent 
and  assistance  of  their  Emperor  and  his  court.  Of  the  same 
opinion  with  the  Marquis  were  the  missionaries.  Many  of 
these  were  extravagant  in  their  praises  of  the  native  character- 
istics of  their  converts,  and  not  only  sincerely  attached  to 
them,  but  also  confident  of  their  capacity  for  educational  ad- 
vancement and  moral  and  social  reform.  To  be  sure,  when 
asked  more  particularly  as  to  what  were  the  precise  traits  of 
character  which  encouraged  these  hopes  and  elicited  this 
affection,  and  when  reminded  how  almost  universal  had  been 
the  confessions,  recent  and  still  going  on  among  the  native 
Christians,  of  long-continued  indulgence  in  the  vices  of  lying, 
dishonesty,  and  impurity,  there  was  no  altogether  satisfactory 
answer  to  be  given.  The  grounds  for  praise  were  usually 
exhausted  when  the  amiable  and  affectionate  nature  of  the 
Korean  had  been  duly  emphasized.  To  increase  my  dis- 
trust of  the  view  held  by  the  missionaries,  were  the  facts 
gained  in  conversation  with  others  who  had  been  witnesses 


REMINISCENCES  AND  IMPRESSIONS       163 

to  the  actions  of  the  excited  Korean  populace ;  who  had  seen 
Korean  officials  that  had  offended  this  populace,  or  had  been 
the  object  of  some  trumped-up  charge  circulated  by  their 
political  rivals  and  enemies,  beaten,  jumped  upon,  smashed, 
torn  limb  from  limb  by  their  "gentle"  and  "amiable"  fellow- 
countrymen.  Nor  were  these  things  done  in  remote  country- 
places,  but  in  Seoul  itself,  near  the  Great  Bell  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Song-do.  I  had  also  heard  from  the  lips  of  Mr.  Morris, 
manager  of  the  Seoul  Electric  Railway,  the  story  of  how,  at 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  night  of  May  27,  1900, 
he  had  been  called  out  of  bed  and,  accompanied  by  an  escort 
of  Japanese  soldiers,  taken  to  the  prison  near  the  Little  West 
Gate  to  view  the  bodies  of  An  Kyun  Soo  and  Kwan  Yung 
Chin.  These  were  reformers  who  had  been  cajoled  through 
promises  of  fair  treatment  by  the  smiling  Emperor  and  his 
officials  to  return  from  exile  in  Japan;  whereupon  they  had 
been  foully  murdered.  Was  one  to  share  the  "shivery  feel- 
ing" with  which  Mr.  Morris  passed  between  the  rows  of  in- 
struments of  torture  to  view  the  red  marks  of  the  cord  with 
which  these  patriots  had  been  strangled;  or  was  one  to 
trust  the  estimate  of  their  Christian  teachers  regarding 
the  mild  and  lovable  disposition  of  the  native  Koreans? 
There  was  also  the  glimpse  into  the  smouldering  fires  of 
hatred  and  cruelty,  mingled  with  cowardice  and  hypocrisy, 
which  I  had  myself  had  during  the  visit  to  Pyeng-yang.  And 
there  were  the  unceasing  daily  items  of  both  the  pro-  and  the 
anti- Japanese  papers,  to  which  reference  has  already  been 
made.  Finally,  there  was  the  fact  that  these  characteristics 
of  the  Korean  populace  were  historical,  and  were  chiefly  in 
evidence  among  themselves,  in  their  relations  toward  their 
own  countrymen  rather  than  directed  toward  foreigners,  even 
including  the  Japanese.  Out  of  this  confusion  of  witnesses 
there  slowly  emerged  the  conclusion  that  the  mixture  of  good 
and  bad  needed  itself  to  be  historically  explained ;  therefore, 


164  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   1TO 

neither  the  denunciations  of  the  one  party  nor  the  praises  of 
the  other  could  afford  to  the  observer  the  sufficient  reasons 
for  a  just  judgment  of  the  native  character.  It  is,  indeed, 
on  the  whole,  just  now  rather  more  despicable  than  that  of 
any  other  people  whom  I  have  come  to  know.  But  it  is 
not  necessarily  beyond  redemption.  At  any  rate,  here  is 
another  question  which  needs  illumining  in  the  whiter  and 
broader  light  of  history. 

The  impressions  gained  as  to  the  Koreans — Emperor, 
Court,  Yang-bans,  and  populace — were,  of  course,  intimately 
associated  with  the  impressions  formed  as  to  the  nature  and 
efficiency  of  the  forces  chiefly  at  work  for  the  reform  and 
uplift  of  the  nation.  Such  reforming  and  uplifting  forces 
are  undoubtedly  these  two :  the  personality  of  the  Resident- 
General,  assisted  in  his  work  by  the  official  corps  under  him, 
and  supported  by  the  Government  of  His  Imperial  Majesty 
of  Japan;  and  the  Christian  missionaries.  What  impres- 
sions, then,  seemed  warranted  by  my  observations  as  to  the 
soundness  and  efficacy  of  these  two  forces  ? 

As  to  the  sincerity  of  Marquis  Ito  in  his  self-sacrificing 
and  arduous  task  of  effecting  a  reformed  condition,  indus- 
trially and  politically,  of  the  Korean  nation,  no  shadow  of 
doubt  ever  arose  in  my  own  mind.  But  this  is  a  relatively 
small  and  unimportant  thing  to  say.  It  is  more  instructive 
as  to  the  truth  to  notice  that  his  sincerity  was,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware,  never  questioned  by  any  one,  not  even  by  those  most 
hostile  to  his  policy,  except  in  an  obviously  ignorant  and 
hypocritical  way.  The  extreme  military  party  of  Japan,  the 
advocates  of  the  "strong  hand  and  of  immediate  forcible 
annexation,  as  well  as  anti- Japanese  missionaries  and  other 
foreigners,  and  even  that  Korean  officialdom  which  always 
has  so  much  difficulty  in  believing  that  any  one  in  office 
can  be  sincere — all  these,  as  soon  as  ignorant  prejudice  be- 
came but  partially  enlightened,  ceased  to  bring  the  charge  of 


REMINISCENCES  AND   IMPRESSIONS       165 

self-seeking  and  deceit  against  the  Resident-General.  For 
he  had  unmistakably  affirmed,  both  privately  and  publicly, 
to  his  own  countrymen,  to  the  Koreans,  and  to  the  world, 
that  it  was  his  intention  to  do  all  that  in  his  power  lay  for 
the  betterment  of  the  condition  of  the  Korean  people  them- 
selves. When  His  Korean  Majesty,  who  had  not  only  re- 
peatedly violated  his  most  solemn  treaty  obligations,  but  had 
also,  with  frequent  prevarications,  falsehoods,  and  treachery, 
broken  his  equally  solemn  promises  to  the  man  who  was 
far  more  unselfishly  interested  in  the  welfare  of  Korea  than 
was  its  ruler,  involved  himself  in  sore  trouble,  he,  too,  turned 
to  the  Marquis  Ito  for  advice  and  help.  That  even  the  in- 
sincere Korean  Emperor  and  his  corrupt  Court  believed  in 
the  sincerity  of  the  Resident- General  I  have  abundant  reason 
to  know. 

It  was  not  the  sincerity  of  Marquis  Ito,  however,  which 
made  most  impression  upon  the  leading  people  of  Seoul;  it 
was  rather  the  qualities  of  patience,  pity,  and  gentleness. 
Such  are,  indeed,  not  usually  the  mental  attitudes  of  the  diplo- 
mat or  politician  toward  those  who  are  intriguing,  or  other- 
wise actively  endeavoring  to  defeat  his  cherished  plans.  It 
should  not  be  forgotten  that  less  than  a  year  before,  during 
the  absence  of  the  Resident- General,  a  plot  had  been  formed 
which  involved  his  assassination ;  and  that  this  plot  had  been 
traced  to  those  who  had  the  entree  of  the  Palace,  in  despite 
of  their  well-known  bad  character,  and  some  of  whom  were 
thereognized  Korean  associates  of  the  men  whose  "services" 
to  the  Korean  Emperor  terminated  in  the  commission  to  the 
Peace  Conference  at  The  Hague.  Of  those  Korean  officials 
who  were  most  opposed  to  the  Japanese  Protectorate,  the 
Marquis  was  ready  to  say  that  he  sympathized  with  them  in 
their  desire  for  the  perfect  independence  of  their  country;  nor 
did  he  blame  them  for  their  struggles  to  bring  about  this  result 
so  long  as  their  way  was  free  from  lying,  robbery,  and  mur- 


i66          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

der.  But  the  witness  of  history  he  regarded  as  unimpeach- 
able proof  of  the  incapacity  of  the  Korean  ruling  classes  to 
lift  up,  or  to  rule  well  their  own  country;  unaided,  they  could 
never  effect  the  reformation  of  existing  industrial  and  social 
evils.  Japan,  the  Far  East,  and  the  interests  of  the  civilized 
world  forbade  their  being  longer  permitted  to  disturb  the 
peaceful  relations  of  foreign  nations.  In  this  connection 
the  Marquis  once  spoke  of  the  difficulty  which  he  experienced 
in  preventing  his  own  countrymen  from  themselves  degener- 
ating in  character  under  the  morally  depressing  influences  of 
Korea.  These  influences  had,  in  his  judgment,  been  more 
or  less  effective  in  the  case  of  most  foreigners — diplomats  and 
missionaries  included — who  had  lived  for  a  long  time  in 
Seoul.  "I  tell  them,"  said  he,  "you  must  not  become 
Koreans;  you  are  here  to  raise  the  Koreans  up,  and  you 
cannot  do  this  if  you  sink  down  to  their  level."  At  a  small 
dinner  party,  at  the  house  of  one  of  the  foreign  consuls,  the 
Resident- General  spoke  more  freely  than  is  his  custom  about 
his  own  early  life,  his  observations  during  his  several  trips 
abroad  in  America,  Europe,  and  Russia,  and  the  ideals 
which  had  guided  his  official  career.  In  this  connection, 
with  reference  to  his  present  work  in  Korea,  he  referred  to 
the  expressions  of  surprise  from  some  of  his  foreign  col- 
leagues, that  he  could  endure  so  calmly  the  ways  of  the 
Koreans  toward  him  and  toward  his  administrative  efforts; 
but  "in  truth,"  he  added,  "I  have  no  feelings  of  anger 
toward  these  people;  they  are  so  ignorant,  they  have  been 
so  long  deprived  of  all  honest  and  enlightened  government, 
they  are  so  poor  and  miserable,  I  am  not  angry  with  them.  I 
pity  them." 

It  will  doubtless  seem  a  strange  reversal  of  what  many  in 
the  United  States  and  elsewhere  have  been  led  to  believe  was 
true — and  certainly  it  is  a  strange  reversal  of  what  ought 
to  have  been  true — when  I  say  that  the  patience  and  sym- 


REMINISCENCES   AND   IMPRESSIONS       167 

pathy  of  Marquis  Ito  in  his  relations  with  the  foreign  Chris- 
tian workers  in  Korea  was  a  surprise  to  me.  The  behavior 
of  some  of  the  missionaries  and  men  prominent  in  the  circle 
of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  which  was  in 
receipt  of  a  subsidy  from  the  Japanese  Government,  had  been 
trying  indeed.  That  their  professed  Korean  converts  and 
adherents  had  used  the  name  of  Christian  and  the  Christian 
organizations  for  selfish  political  purposes  could  not  have  been 
wholly  avoided .  Even  the  threats  of  legal  proceedings  had  been 
unable  to  prevent  this.  But  that  injudicious  reports  of  wrongs, 
either  exaggerated  or  wholly  false,  should  be  sent  by  private 
and  public  letters  to  the  "home  country,"  while  the  requests  of 
the  Resident-General  to  learn  of  these  wrongs  and  to  have  the 
opportunity  to  correct  them  remained  wholly  unheeded,  con- 
stituted a  trial  to  patience  which,  I  am  of  the  opinion,  few 
men  in  his  position  would  have  borne  so  well.  Emphasis  was 
given  to  this  by  the  fact  that  some  of  the  most  violent  and 
false  accusations  against  the  Japanese  Government  in  Seoul 
were  made  in  papers  and  books  published  by  authors  who 
were  known  to  be  on  terms  of  friendship  with  foreign  relig- 
ious agencies.  Even  certain  paid  attorneys  of  the  Imperial 
intrigues  against  the  Resident- General  were  of  this  connection. 
To  all  this  it  should  be  added  that  His  Excellency  was  being 
severely  (although  by  no  means  fairly)  criticized  in  his  own 
country  for  his  "excessive"  patience  toward  these  teachers 
of  a  foreign  religion.  Excited  by  the  reports  which  were 
coming  from  the  United  States  (see  p.  62),  one  of  the  re- 
spectable Japanese  papers  of  Tokyo  (the  Yomiuri,  in  its 
issue  of  May  6th)  had  found  it  "necessary  to  examine  the 
past  conduct  of  the  American  missionaries  in  Korea."  It  ex- 
pressed profound  admiration  "for  the  personality  of  the 
Founder  of  Christianity  and  high  respect  for  the  enthusiasm 
and  devotion  of  his  followers."  But  as  for  those  who, 
"wearing  the  mask  of  missionaries  .  .  .  pander  to  the  native 


i68  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

prejudices  .  .  .  and  endeavor  to  thwart  our  policy  by  dis- 
seminating baseless  rumors  and  mischievous  insinuations, 
there  ought  to  be  no  hesitation  to  deport  them  out  of  the  coun- 
try." "Marquis  Ito,  as  a  friend  of  peace  and  liberty,  has 
already  shown  more  than  sufficient  conciliation  and  patience." 

The  story  of  the  better  way  which  Marquis  Ito  steadily 
followed,  with  its  unwavering  policy  of  conciliation  and  pa- 
tience, and  of  its  success  so  far  as  the  majority  of  the  more  rep- 
resentative and  influential  of  the  missionary  body  is  concerned, 
has  already  been  told  in  part.  For  the  small  number  who  still 
refuse  to  respond  to  this  policy,  it  is,  of  course,  not  deporta- 
tion by  the  Japanese  Government,  but  counsel  and  rebuke 
from  their  employers  at  home,  which  is  the  proper  remedy. 
But  the  impressions  of  the  visitor,  who  had  full  measure  of 
the  confidence  of  the  leader  of  one  of  these  two  parties  who 
are  working  for  the  redemption  of  Korea,  and  some  good 
measure  of  the  confidence  of  certain  leaders  of  the  other 
party,  can  be  given  in  no  other  way  so  well  as  by  quoting 
the  following  words  from  one  of  their  number: 

"From  the  Peninsula,"  said  Dr.  George  Heber  Jones,  in 
an  address  to  the  First  General  Conference  of  the  Methodist 
Church  in  Japan,  "we  watch  with  intense  interest  the  de- 
velopment in  Japan;  for  Providence  has  bound  up  together 
the  destinies  of  the  two  nations.  Nationally,  a  new  life  opens 
up  before  Korea.  Japan  has  sent  her  veteran  statesman  to 
advise  and  guide  Korea,  the  man  to  whom  in  the  largest  sense 
Japan  owes  so  much — the  most  conspicuous  statesman  in 
Asia  to-day,  Marquis  Ito.  Plans  for  the  reform  of  the 
Government,  codification  of  the  laws,  development  of  the 
industry  and  business  of  the  people,  and  extension  of  educa- 
tion, have  been  formulated,  and  in  a  comparatively  short 
time  most  promising  results  achieved.  In  spite  of  difficulties 
which  necessarily  for  the  present  encumber  the  situation, 
the  outlook  is  most  hopeful.  As  a  church  in  Korea  we  de- 


REMINISCENCES  AND   IMPRESSIONS       169 

liberately  stand  aloof  from  all  politics,  but  find  our  work,  as 
it  relates  to  the  production  of  strong .  character,  of  honest, 
upright,  true  men,  most  intimately  related  to  the  regeneration 
of  the  nation.  The  coming  ten  years  promise  to  be  the  most 
eventful  in  the  history  of  Korea." 

At  a  tea-party,  given  in  the  gardens  of  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Scranton,  at  Seoul,  where  Bishop  Cranston,  Bishop  Harris, 
Dr.  Leonard  and  Dr.  Goucher,  were  among  the  non-resident 
guests,  Marquis  Ito  was  present;  having  arrived  somewhat 
earlier  than  the  appointed  hour.  After  greeting  the  ladies 
and  gentlemen  present,  the  Marquis  spoke  as  follows: 

I  wish  to  take  this  opportunity  of  saying  a  few  words  to  you. 
I  beg  you,  however,  not  to  expect  that  I  shall  say  anything  new 
or  striking.  I  only  mean  to  repeat  to  you  what  I  have  been  saying 
to  the  Japanese  and  the  Koreans.  If  my  words  are  not  new  or 
striking,  I  may  at  least  assure  you  that  what  I  am  going  to  say 
comes  from  my  heart,  and  represents  just  what  I  feel  and  think. 
As  the  official  representative  of  Japan  in  this  country,  my  prin- 
cipal duty  consists  in  guiding  and  assisting  Korea  in  her  efforts 
at  improvement  and  progress.  I  entertain  deep  sympathy  with 
the  people  of  this  country;  and  it  is  my  earnest  ambition  to  help 
in  saving  them  from  the  unfortunate  state  in  which  they  now  find 
themselves.  You,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  are  also  here  for  serving 
and  saving  the  Koreans.  The  only  difference  is  that,  while  I  seek 
to  serve  them  through  political  and  administrative  channels,  you 
work  for  the  same  end  by  means  of  religious  influences.  We 
thus  stand  on  common  ground,  we  are  working  for  a  common 
object.  You  will  therefore  believe  me  when  I  assure  you  that  I 
always  take  the  most  sympathetic  interest  in  your  noble  work, 
and  that  I  am  ever  ready  to  co-operate  with  you,  in  so  far  as  my 
duties  permit,  in  your  efforts  to  further  the  moral  and  intellectual 
elevation  of  this  people.  On  the  other  hand,  I  feel  confident  that 
I  may  rely  upon  a  similar  attitude  on  your  part  toward  my  en- 
deavors for  the  benefit  of  the  Koreans.  As  to  the  political  rela- 
tions between  Japan  and  Korea,  it  would  be  too  long  and  tedious 


170  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

to  refer  to  the  past;  it  is  a  long  history.  It  is  sufficient  for  my 
present  purpose  to  say  that  the  two  countries  are  so  situated 
toward  each  other  that  their  destinies  are  bound  together  in  the 
closest  manner.  To  maintain  undisturbed  the  close  mutual  rela- 
tions which  fate  has  ordained  for  the  two  countries,  is  the  object 
for  which  Japan  is  in  this  country;  beyond  that  she  has  no  other 
object.  As  you  know  very  well,  Korea  can  hardly  be  called  an 
organized  state  in  the  modern  sense.  I  am  trying  to  make  it 
such.  Whether,  or  how  far,  I  may  be  able  to  realize  my  object 
in  this  work  of  political  regeneration,  as  also  in  the  task  of  im- 
proving the  general  lot  of  the  people,  God  alone  knows.  All  that 
I  can  say  to  you  is  that  I  shall  do  my  best  for  the  successful  real- 
ization of  my  mission.  I  may  be  permitted  to  refer  to  a  matter 
in  which  you  can  do  much  good  for  Koreans.  I  dare  say  that 
among  the  many  thousands  of  Japanese  in  this  country,  there  are 
some  who  disgrace  their  nation  by  misconduct  toward  Koreans; 
but  you  may  rest  assured  that  these  wrong-doers  find  in  me  the 
most  uncompromising  enemy.  I  may  also  say  that  wrong-doing 
is  not  confined  to  the  Japanese;  there  are  similar  offenders  among 
the  Koreans  too.  While  I  am  taking  unsparing  pains  to  repress 
wrong-doing  among  the  Japanese,  I  rely  upon  you  for  your  hearty 
co-operation  to  the  same  end  among  the  Koreans,  in  so  far  as  it  lies 
in  your  power  as  their  religious  teachers  and  leaders. 

But  the  wisdom  and  firmness  of  the  Resident- General  were 
no  less  impressive  than  were  the  qualities  of  patience  and 
gentleness.  To  the  student  of  Korean  affairs,  of  the  more 
recently  past  and  the  present  relations  of  the  Japanese  to  the 
Koreans,  it  soon  becomes  patent  what  is  chiefly  needed  in 
order  to  mend  the  former  and  to  improve  the  latter.  It  is 
first  of  all  the  impartial  administration  of  justice,  in  the  way 
of  righting  wrongs,  so  far  as  this  is  possible,  and  of  securing 
the  rights  of  life,  liberty,  and  property;  then  comes  the 
fostering  of  education  in  the  industries  and  arts,  and  the 
progressive  elevation  of  the  moral  and  religious  condition 
of  the  people.  At  the  time  of  my  visit  there  were  number- 


REMINISCENCES  AND   IMPRESSIONS       171 

less  claims  pending  of  fraud  and  violence — not  so  much  of 
recent  occurrence  as  acts  of  some  months  or  years  old — on 
the  part  of  Koreans  against  Koreans,  and  of  Japanese  and 
Koreans  against  each  other.  Land  had  been  seized  and 
stolen  outright,  or  fraudulently  obtained  by  forged  deeds  or 
under  false  titles.  Foreign  promoters  were  clamoring  over 
privileges  and  concessions,  which  were  either  purchased  with 
some  show  of  fairness  or  obtained  from  His  Majesty,  or  from 
some  subject,  by  partnership  with  the  crowd  of  Korean 
official  "squeezers."  The  weaker  race — it  was  claimed— 
was  oppressed,  insulted,  beaten,  or  rudely  pushed  around— 
not  now  by  their  own  officials  or  by  Chinese  or  Russians, 
but  by  a  people  whose  superiority  of  any  sort  it  humiliated 
their  traditional  pride  even  grudgingly  to  admit.  The 
ability  of  the  most  honest  and  capable  local  magistrate, 
whether  Japanese  or  Korean,  to  discover  the  truth  and  to  do 
any  measure  of  justice  was  greatly  hampered  and,  indeed, 
made  almost  practically  unavailing  by  the  differences  in  the 
two  languages  and  by  the  fact  that  the  interpreters  them- 
selves could,  for  the  most  part,  in  no  respect  be  thoroughly 
trusted.  It  was,  indeed,  a  favorite  trick  with  the  average 
Korean  interpreter  to  hire  out  to  one  of  his  own  countrymen 
who  had  a  case  against  some  Japanese,  and  then  to  betray 
his  client  for  a  bribe  from  the  other  side,  by  misstating  or 
falsifying  his  client's  cause.  And,  under  such  circumstances, 
what  could  any  magistrate  do  who  understood  only  one  of 
the  two  languages?  Moreover,  according  to  the  testimony 
of  Mr.  D.  W.  Stevens,  who  had  made  careful  examination 
into  scores  of  such  complaints,  it  was  an  extremely  rare  thing 
for  a  Korean,  even  when  he  had  a  perfectly  good  case,  to 
refrain  from  mixing  a  large  measure  of  exaggeration  and 
falsehood  with  his  truth-telling;  nor  was  it  easy  to  find  any 
considerable  crime  of  fraud  committed  against  a  Korean 
by  a  Japanese  without  uncovering  a  Korean  partner  to  the 


172  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

base  transaction.  So  crafty  are  the  Koreans  that,  in  most 
cases  of  such  partnership,  it  is  not  the  foreign  member  of 
the  firm  who  gets  the  larger  share  of  the  dividends  resulting. 
All  these  impressions  as  to  what  was  most  imperatively 
needed  for  the  emergencies  that  were  daily  arising  I  was 
encouraged  to  mention  to  the  Resident-General  at  any  of  our 
several  interviews.  It  was,  of  course,  desirable  first  of  all  to 
prevent  the  continuance  of  the  evils  which  had  been,  both  in 
Korea  and  abroad,  charged  against  his  own  nationals  in  their 
treatment  ol"  the  Koreans.  Inquiry  and  observation  com- 
bined to  confirm  the  opinion  that  this  was  already  being 
accomplished.  At  that  time,  however,  most  of  the  riots  in 
the  country  districts  did  not  appear  to  indicate  feelings  of 
hatred  on  the  part  of  the  natives  toward  "foreign  oppressors"; 
they  were  only  the  customary  expression  of  lawless  resistance 
to  a  condition  of  wretchedness  and  misrule  that  was  of  native 
origin  and  indefinitely  long-standing.  No  important  acts  of 
violence  on  the  part  of  Japanese  toward  Koreans  came  under 
my  observation,  and  none  of  recent  occurrence  were  credibly 
reported.  Even  of  those  petty  deeds  of  rudeness  and  in- 
civility, which  exasperate  hostile  feeling  far  beyond  their  real 
significance,  I  saw  comparatively  few.  There  was  some 
rather  contemptuous  treatment  of  the  Korean  crowd  at  the 
gates  of  the  railway  stations  and  on  the  platforms  of  the 
trains;  but  the  Koreans  are  themselves  exceedingly  stupid 
and  ready  to  crowd  others;  and  the  handling  given  them  by 
the  Japanese  officials  was  in  no  case  so  rough  as  that  which 
the  proudest  American  citizen  is  liable  to  receive  at  the 
Brooklyn  Bridge  or  on  the  Fourth  Avenue  street-cars.  Once, 
indeed,  my  jinrikisha-man,  after  he  had  several  times  warned, 
by  his  outcry,  a  Korean  gentleman  who  was  occupying  the 
middle  of  the  street  with  that  dignified  and  slow-moving  pace 
so  characteristic  of  the  idle  Yang-ban,  in  order  to  avoid 
knocking  the  pedestrian  down  with  his  vehicle,  gave  him  a 


REMINISCENCES   AND   IMPRESSIONS       173 

somewhat  ungentle  push  to  one  side.  The  Korean  fell  for- 
ward, after  the  manner  of  a  boy's  tin  soldier  before  a  marble. 
His  crinoline  hat  rolled  off  his  head,  but  alighted  a  short 
distance  away.  At  first  I  was  alarmed  lest  he  might  be  in- 
jured, and  was  about  to  order  the  offending  kurumaya  to 
stop  his  running  that  I  might  offer  my  assistance.  But  when 
it  appeared  that  neither  the  victim  of  this  scarcely  avoidable 
rudeness,  nor  his  hat,  was  injured,  and  that  no  one,  including 
the  man  himself,  seemed  to  consider  the  incident  worth  no- 
ticing, I  decided  not  to  emphasize  it  further.  Undoubtedly, 
this  would  not  have  happened  with  a  Japanese  child  or 
woman  in  the  adult  Korean's  place;  it  might  easily  have 
happened,  however,  in  the  streets  of  Tokyo  or  Kyoto  if  the 
pedestrian  had  been  a  man  of  obviously  inferior  rank. 

In  brief,  it  was  the  uniform  testimony  of  those  who  had 
been  in  Korea  during  the  troublous  times  which  followed  the 
war  with  Russia  that,  under  Marquis  Ito's  administration, 
Japanese  wrong-doers  were  being  sought  out  and  restrained 
or  punished,  and  that  deeds  of  violence  and  even  of  rudeness 
were  becoming  rarer  with  every  month  of  his  stay. 

Other  measures  which  seemed  to  me  desirable  to  have  put 
in  operation  were  such  as  the  following:  a  civil-service  ex- 
amination which  should  provide  that  every  official,  Korean  or 
Japanese,  whose  duties  brought  him  into  intimate  daily  rela- 
tions with  both  peoples,  should  have  a  working  knowledge  of 
both  languages;  the  organizing  of  a  body  of  authorized  inter- 
preters, whose  honesty  and  ability  to  discharge  this  very 
delicate  and  important  function  of  oral  or  written  interpreta- 
tion, in  all  legal  causes  and  matters  of  Government  business, 
should  be  guaranteed,  the  speedy  and  even  spectacular  de- 
monstration of  the  Government's  intention  to  give  to  the 
Korean  common  people  strict  justice  in  all  their  valid  com- 
plaints against  the  Japanese;  the  improvement  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  Japanese  civil  service  and  of  the  Japanese  police 


174  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

and  petty  officers  of  every  kind;  and  some  kind  of  arrange- 
ment between  the  missionary  schools  and  the  schools  under 
the  control  of  both  the  Korean  and  the  Japanese  authorities, 
by  which  uniformity  might  be  attained  in  the  primary  educa- 
tion, and,  in  the  higher  stages,  the  mistakes  made  by  the 
British  Government  in  India  might  be  avoided.  These  mis- 
takes have  resulted  in  educating  a  crowd  of  native  "babus" 
who  are  both  unwilling  and  unfit  for  most  kinds  of  service- 
able employment  in  the  real  interests  of  their  own  nation's 
development.  As  to  this  last  matter,  the  statement  may  be 
repeated  that  not  a  small  proportion  of  the  Koreans  educated 
abroad  or  in  the  missionary  schools,  with  an  almost  purely 
literary  education,  have  turned  out  either  useless,  or  posi- 
tively mischievous,  when  the  practical  reform  and  redemption 
of  their  own  country  is  to  be  undertaken  and  enforced.  For 
if  there  is  any  one  thing  which  the  average  educated  Korean 
Yang-ban  will  not  do,  that  thing  is  hard  and  steady  useful 
work. 

None  of  these  measures — it  was  soon  made  obvious — were 
to  be  overlooked  or  neglected  in  the  large  and  generous  plans 
of  the  Resident-General  for  the  reform  and  uplift  of  Korea. 
Time,  however,  was  needed  for  them  all;  they  all  required  a 
supply  of  helpers,  to  train  which  time  was  required.  And 
who  that  knows  the  lives  of  the  great  benefactors  of  mankind, 
or  is  versed  in  the  most  significant  facts  and  obvious  truths 
of  history,  does  not  recognize  the  evil  clamor  of  the  press,  of 
the  politicians,  and  of  the  crowd,  to  have  that  done  all  at  once 
which  cannot  possibly  be  done  without  the  help  of  time.  The 
whole  explanation  of  the  delay  is  best  summed-up  in  the 
pregnant  sentence  already  quoted  from  one  of  Marquis  Ito's 
public  addresses,  which  was  evidently  designed  as  a  declara- 
tion of  settled  policy  on  his  part.  "As  you  know  very  well," 
said  he,  "Korea  can  hardly  be  called  an  organized  state  in 
the  modern  sense;  I  am  trying  to  make  it  such."  But  as  he 


REMINISCENCES  AND   IMPRESSIONS       175 

explained  to  me  more  in  detail:  "I  have  been  at  work  on 
these  difficult  problems  only  one  short  year,  interrupted  by 
visits  to  Japan,  because  my  own  Emperor  required  my 
presence;  and  the  first  half  of  this  year  was  almost  entirely 
occupied  with  such  physical  improvements  as  various  en- 
gineering schemes,  provision  for  hospi  als,  roads,  and  similar 
matters.  There  has  never  been  any  such  thing  as  Korean 
law,  under  which  justice  can  be  administered  impartially. 
But,  according  to  the  constitution  of  Japan,  no  Japanese  sub- 
ject of  His  Imperial  Majesty,  as  well  as  no  other  foreigners 
resident  in  Korea,  can  be  deprived  of  property,  or  of  liberty, 
otherwise  than  by  due  process  of  law.  Nor  is  my  relation  to 
the  administration  of  justice  in  Korea  like  that  of  the  British 
magistrate  in  British  India.  With  Korean  affairs,  purely 
internal,  when  the  attempt  is  made  to  settle  them  in  Korean 
fashion,  I  have  no  right,  under  the  treaty,  to  interfere.  And 
the  Koreans,  when  they  could  resort  to  legal  measures  for 
settling  their  disputes,  ordinarily  will  not  do  so;  they  prefer 
to  resort  to  the  ancient  illegal  practice  of  running  to  some 
Korean  Court  official  and  bribing  him  to  use  influence  on 
their  side.  As  for  Korean  judges  who  can  be  trusted  to  do 
justice,  there  15  scarcely  any  raw  material  even  for  such 
judges  to  be  found.  A  carefully  selected  number  of  jurists, 
with  a  large  force  of  clerks,  has,  however,  been  brought  from 
Japan;  and  they  are  diligently  at  work  trying  to  devise  a 
written  code  under  which  the  ancient  customs  and  common 
laws  of  Korea,  as  representing  its  best  efforts  to  enact  and 
establish  justice,  shall  be  made  available  for  future  use." 

Meantime,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  Resident-General 
was  being  opposed  and,  as  far  as  possible,  thwarted,  in  every 
effort  to  improve  the  civil  service  and  judicial  administration 
of  Korea,  by  the  corrupt  Korean  Court,  with  its  mob  of 
eunuchs,  palace  women,  sorceresses,  etc.,  and  by  nearly  all 
the  native  officials  and  Yang-bans  in  places  of  influence  and 


176  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS  ITO 

power.  And  the  chief  seal  0}  corruption  and  of  opposition  to 
genuine^  effective  reform  was  the  smiling  and  amiable  Korean 
Emperor  himself.  How  effectively,  because  wisely  and  firmly, 
Marquis  Ito  initiated  and  advanced  these  reform  measures 
will  receive  its  proof,  so  far  as  proof  is  at  present  possible,  by 
examination  of  results  recorded  in  official  and  other  trust- 
worthy reports.  To  the  facts  already  narrated,  on  which  my 
personal  impression  of  these  qualities  was  based,  many  others 
of  even  a  more  convincing  character  might  easily  be  added. 

Of  the  feelings  of  admiration  and  friendship  which  grew 
during  these  weeks  of  somewhat  confidential  relations,  on 
the  part  of  the  guest  toward  his  host,  it  would  not  be  fitting 
to  speak  with  any  detail.  But  in  closing  the  more  exclusively 
personal  part  of  my  narrative  I  might  quote  the  words  of  one 
of  the  Consuls- General  residing  in  Seoul.  This  diplomat 
expressed  his  feeling  toward  the  Marquis  Ito  as  one  of  venera- 
tion, beyond  that  which  he  had  ever  felt  for  any  but  a  very 
few  of  the  men  whom  he  had  met  in  his  official  career. 

After  all,  however,  personal  impressions,  no  matter  how 
favorable  to  truth  the  conditions  under  which  they  are  de- 
rived, are  not  of  themselves  satisfactory  in  answer  to  ques- 
tions so  grave  and  so  complicated  as  those  which  encompass 
the  existing  relations  between  Japan  and  Korea.  Such  im- 
pressions must  be  subjected  to  the  severer  tests,  the  more 
comprehensive  considerations,  the  profounder  sanctions,  of 
history  and  of  statistics.  For  this  reason  I  now  pass  on  to 
the  much  more  difficult  task  of  reviewing  in  the  light  of  these 
tests,  considerations,  and  sanctions,  the  impressions  of  my 
visit  to  Korea  in  1907,  as  the  guest  of  Marquis  Ito, 


PART  II 

A  CRITICAL  AND  HISTORICAL  INQUIRY 


PART  II 

CHAPTER  IX 
THE  PROBLEM:   HISTORICAL 

AN  authentic  and  trustworthy  history  of  Korea  has  never 
been  written;  and  enormous  difficulties  await  the  investigator 
who,  in  the  future,  attempts  this  task.  The  native  records, 
almost  down  to  the  present  time,  consist  of  the  same  un- 
critical mixture  of  legend,  fable,  oral  tradition,  and  un- 
verified written  narrative  which  characterizes  the  earliest  so- 
called  histories  of  all  civilized  peoples.  But  the  Korean 
civilization  has  not  as  yet  produced  any  writer  both  am- 
bitious and  able  to  treat  this  material  in  a  way  corresponding 
to  the  opportunity  it  affords.  All  the  narratives  of  events, 
except  those  of  the  most  recent  date,  which  have  been  written 
by  foreigners,  have,  of  necessity,  been  lacking  in  that  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  Korean  language,  institutions,  cus- 
toms, and  the  temperament  and  spirit  of  the  people,  which  is 
the  indispensable  equipment  of  the  historian.  The  an- 
tiquities and  other  physical  records  of  an  historical  character 
have,  moreover,  never  to  any  considerable  extent  been  ex- 
plored. A  striking  example  of  this  general  truth  was  af- 
forded only  a  short  time  ago  when  Dr.  George  Heber  Jones 
discovered  the  fact  that  a  wrong  date  (by  a  whole  century) 
had  been  given  for  the  casting  of  the  Great  Bell  at  Chong-no 
— one  of  the  most  conspicuous  public  objects  of  interest  in 
Seoul;  yet  the  correct  date  was  inscribed  on  the  bell  itself! 


i8o          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

The  reason  for  this  petty  falsifying  of  historical  fact  was 
characteristically  Korean;  it  was  in  order  that  the  honor  of 
casting  the  bell  might  be  ascribed  to  the  Founder  of  the 
present  Dynasty. 

In  spite  of  these  facts,  however,  the  main  outlines  of  the 
development  of  Korea  are  unmistakable.  Its  history  has 
been,  for  the  ruling  classes,  one  long,  monotonous,  almost 
unbroken  record  of  misrule  and  misfortune;  and  for  the 
people  an  experience  of  poverty,  oppression,  and  the  shedding 
of  blood.  That  they  have  endured  at  all  as  the  semblance 
of  a  nation,  although  not  "as  an  organized  state  in  the  mod- 
ern sense,"  has  been  due  chiefly  to  these  two  causes:  first,  to 
a  certain  native  quality  of  passive  resistance,  varied  by 
periods  of  frenzied  uprising  against  both  native  and  foreign 
oppressors;  and,  second,  to  the  fact  that  the  difficulties 
encountered  in  getting  over  mountains  and  sea,  in  order  to 
maintain  a  foreign  rule  long  enough  to  accomplish  these 
ends,  have  prevented  their  stronger  neighbors  on  all  sides 
from  thoroughly  subjugating  and  absorbing  them.  This 
latter  reason  may  be  stated  in  another  way:  it  has  hitherto 
never  been  worth  the  cost  to  terminate  the  independent 
existence  of  the  Korean  nation. 

Nor  is  it  difficult  to  learn  from  authentic  sources  the  two 
most  potent  reasons  for  the  unfortunate  and  evil  state  through- 
out their  history  of  the  Korean  people.  These  reasons  are, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  physical  results  of  repeated  invasions 
from  the  outside;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  adoption  and 
perpetuation,  in  a  yet  more  mischievous  and  degraded  fashion, 
of  the  civil  and  official  corruptions  received  from  Korea's 
ancient  suzerain,  China.  It  is  customary  to  attach  great 
importance,  both  as  respects  the  damage  done  to  the  ma- 
terial interests  of  the  country,  and  also  as  accounting  for  the 
Korean  hatred  of  the  Japanese,  to  the  invasion  of  Hide- 
yoshi.  But  the  undoubted  facts  do  not  bear  out  this  con- 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  181 

tention.  The  lasting  effects  of  this  incoming  of  foreign 
armed  forces  from  the  south,  and  of  their  short-lived  and 
partial  occupation  of  Korean  territory,  were  relatively  un- 
important. None  of  the  institutions  of  Korea  were  changed ; 
none  of  her  physical  resources  were  largely  depleted.  It  was 
just  those  places  in  which  the  Japanese  remained  in  the  most 
intimate  relations  with  the  Koreans,  where  there  was  least 
permanent  development  of  race  hatred.  But  the  results  of 
the  successive  invasions  from  the  north  and  northwest,  by 
the  wild  tribes,  by  the  Mongols,  and  by  the  Chinese  and 
Manchu  dynasties,  were  much  more  injurious  in  every  way 
to  the  physical  well-being  of  the  peninsula. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  contrasts  between  Japan 
and  Korea  that,  whereas  the  more  distinctly  moral  ele- 
ments of  Confucianism  moulded  a  noble  and  knightly  type 
of  character  in  the  former  country,  in  its  neighbor  the  doc- 
trines of  the  great  Oriental  teacher  chiefly  resulted  in  forming 
the  average  official  into  a  more  self-conceited  but  really  cor- 
rupt and  mischievous  personality.  Indeed,  the  baleful  influ- 
ence of  China,  especially  since  the  establishment  of  the 
Manchu  dynasty,  has  been  the  principal  hindrance  to  the 
industrial  and  civic  development  of  Korea.  The  contribu- 
tion made  to  its  civilization  by  Chinese  letters,  inventions, 
and  arts,  has  been  no  adequate  compensation  for  the  de- 
pressing and  debasing  character  of  the  imported  political  and 
social  system.  The  official  institutions  and  practices  of  the 
suzerain  have  for  centuries  been  bad  enough  at  home;  but 
here  they  have  been  even  worse,  whether  admiringly  copied 
or  enforced  by  the  influence  of  its  Court  and  the  power  of  its 
army.  And,  whereas  the  great  multitude  of  the  Chinese 
people  have  displayed  for  a  long  time  the  inherent  power  of 
industrial  self-development  and  of  successful  business  inter- 
course with  foreigners,  the  Koreans  have  thus  far  been  rela- 
tively lacking  in  the  qualities  essential  for  every  kind  of 


182  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

material  and  governmental  success.  Thus  all  the  civiliza- 
tion of  Korea  has  been  so  characterized  by  weakness  and 
corruption  as  to  excite  contempt  as  well  as  disapprobation 
from  the  moralist's  and  the  economist's  points  of  view.  It 
is  China  and  not  Japan  which  through  some  2,000  years  of 
past  history  has  been  the  expensive  and  bloody  enemy,  and 
the  political  seducer  and  corrupter  of  Korea. 

The  division  of  the  history  of  Korea,  made  by  Mr.  Homer 
B.  Hulbert,  into  ancient  and  modern — the  latter  period  be- 
ginning in  1392,  with  the  founding  of  the  present  dynasty — 
is  entirely  without  warrant.  "Modern  history"  can  scarcely 
be  said  to  have  begun  in  the  so-called  " Hermit  Kingdom" 
previous  to  the  time  when  a  treaty  was  concluded  between 
Japan  and  Korea  by  General  Kuroda,  acting  as  Plenipoten- 
tiary, on  February  26,  1876.  Even  then,  the  first  Korean 
Embassy  under  the  new  regime,  having  arrived  at  Yokohama 
by  a  Japanese  steamer  on  the  following  May  2gth,  when  it 
started  back  to  Korea  a  month  later,  refused  all  overtures  of 
Western  foreigners  to  communicate  with  their  country. 
From  the  time  when  the  present  kingdom  arose  by  the  union 
of  the  three  previously  existing  kingdoms,  the  doings  of  the 
Korean  Court  and  of  the  Korean  people  have  been  substan- 
tially the  same.  When  threatened  by  foreign  invaders  or  by 
popular  uprisings  and  official  rebellion  at  home,  the  Court — 
a  motley  crowd  or  mob,  of  King,  palace  officials,  eunuchs, 
concubines,  blind  men,  sorceresses,  and  other  similar  re- 
tainers of  the  palace — has,  as  a  rule,  precipitately  fled  to 
some  place  of  refuge,  deserted  by  efficient  military  escort  and 
in  most  miserable  plight.  Only  when  behind  walls  and  com- 
pelled to  fight,  or  when  aroused  to  a  blind  fury  in  the  form  of 
a  mob,  does  the  average  Korean  show  the  courage  necessary 
to  defend  or  to  avenge  his  monarch.  The  saying  of  the 
Japanese  that  "the  Koreans  are  kittens  in  the  field  and  tigers 
in  the  fortress"  characterized  their  behavior  during  the 


THE   PROBLEM:     HISTORICAL  183 

Hideyoshi  invasion;  it  is  characteristic  of  them  to-day. 
Three  centuries  ago,  when  the  king  was  in  flight  from  Seoul 
to  Pyeng-yang  his  own  attendants  stole  his  food  and  left  him 
hungry;  and  the  Korean  populace,  left  behind  in  Seoul  rose 
at  once  and  burned  and  looted  what  the  Court  had  not  carried 
away.  "  Before  many  days  had  elapsed  the  people  found  out 
that  the  coming  of  the  Japanese  did  not  mean  universal 
slaughter,  as  they  had  supposed,  and  gradually  they  returned 
to  their  lands  in  the  city.  They  reopened  their  shops,  and 
as  long  as  they  attended  to  their  own  affairs  they  were  un- 
molested by  the  Japanese.  Indeed,  they  adapted  themselves 
readily  to  the  new  order  of  things,  and  drove  a  lucrative  trade 
with  the  invaders"!1  In  these  respects,  too,  the  voice  of 
Korean  history  is  a  witness  with  a  monotone;  as  it  was  in 
1592  and  earlier,  so  it  has  been  down  to  the  present  time. 

In  one  other  most  important  respect  there  has  been  little 
variation  in  the  records  of  Korean  history.  Brave,  loyal,  and 
good  men,  when  they  have  arisen  to  serve  their  monarch  and 
their  country,  have  never  been  permitted  to  flourish  on 
Korean  soil.  The  braver,  more  loyal  and  unselfish  they  have 
been,  the  more  difficult  has  the  path  to  the  success  of  their 
endeavors  been  made  by  a  corrupt  Court  and  an  ignorant 
and  ungrateful  populace.  Almost  without  exception  such 
men — rare  enough  at  the  best  in  Korean  history — have  been 
traduced  by  their  enemies  and  deserted  and  degraded  by  their 
king.  During  the  Hideyoshi  invasion  the  most  worthy  leader 
of  the  Korean  forces  by  land  was  General  Kim  Tuk-nyung. 
It  is  said  that  the  Christian  Japanese  General  Konishi  had 
so  high  an  opinion  of  General  Kim  that  he  had  a  portrait  of 
him  made,  and  on  seeing  it  exclaimed:  "This  man  is  indeed 
a  general."  But,  on  account  of  Kim's  success,  his  enemies 
maligned  him;  the  king  had  him  arrested,  brought  to  Seoul, 
and,  after  a  disgraceful  trial,  executed.  In  all  Korea's  his- 

1  Hulbert,  The  History  of  Korea,  I,  p.  368. 


i84          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

tory  there  has  never  been  another  man  to  whom  the  nation 
has  owed  so  much  for  his  courage,  devotion,  and  genius  in 
affairs  of  war  as  to  Admiral  Yi.  It  was  he,  more  than  all 
others — king,  officers,  and  common  soldiers — who  accom- 
plished the  final  ill-success  of  the  Japanese  invasion.  It  was 
Admiral  Yi  who  destroyed  all  chance  of  re-enforcing  the 
Japanese  army  in  Seoul,  and  who  thus  actually  did  what  the 
Russian  fleet  in  the  recent  war  could  not  begin  to  do.  But 
this  great  patriot  and  successful  leader,  under  the  same  bale- 
ful influences,  was  degraded  to  the  rank  of  a  common  soldier 
and  barely  escaped  with  his  life.  Quite  uniformly  such  has 
been  the  fate  of  the  true  partiots  and  best  leaders  during  all 
Korea's  history,  and  this  just  because  they  were  true  and  of 
the  best.  Such  would  to-day  be  the  fate  of  the  saving  ele- 
ments left  in  Korean  official  circles  if  the  hand  of  Japan  were 
withdrawn.  Indeed,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  most 
difficult  part  of  the  Resident-General's  problem  is  to  cultivate 
and  to  protect  Korean  leaders  of  a  trustworthy  character. 
It  is  Korea's  national  characteristic  to  "stone  her  prophets"; 
but  few  of  them  have  had  "whited  sepulchres"  built  to 
them  by  future  generations. 

The  more  ancient  relations  of  Japan  and  Korea  were  such 
as  are  common  to  people  who  inhabit  contiguous  lands  at 
the  corresponding  stage  of  civilization.  "As  to  the  relations 
between  the  two  nations,"  says  Brinkley,1  "they  were  limited 
for  a  long  time  to  mutual  raids."  On  the  one  side,  the  Japanese 
could  complain  that,  in  the  first  century  B.C.,  when  a  pestilence 
had  reduced  their  forces,  Korean  freebooters  invaded  Kiu- 
shiu  and  settled  themselves  in  the  desolated  hamlets  of  the 
Japanese;  that  the  Koreans  lent  assistance  to  the  semi- 
savage  aborigines  of  the  same  island  and  to  the  Mongol  in- 
vaders; and  that  their  citizens  who  wished  to  enter  into 
friendly  relations  of  commerce  with  the  neighboring  peninsula 

1  Japan,  I,  p.  69  /. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  185 

were  treated  with  scorn  and  even  with  violence.  On  the  other 
side,  there  was  valid  ground  for  the  charge  that  Japanese 
pirates,  either  alone  or  in  conjunction  with  Chinese,  often  in- 
vaded the  coasts  of  Korea;  and  that  Japanese  traders  by  no 
means  always  conducted  themselves  in  a  manner  to  win  the 
confidence  and  friendship  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  peninsula. 

The  earlier  trade  relations  between  Japan  and  Korea  were 
irregular  and  by  no  means  always  satisfactory  to  either  party. 
The  wardens  of  the  island  of  Tsushima,  which  is  by  its  very 
position  a  sort  of  natural  mediating  territory  between  the  two 
countries — the  So  family — had  virtual  control  of  the  legiti- 
mate commerce.  They  issued  permits  for  fifty  ships  which 
passed  annually  from  ports  in  Japan  to  the  three  Japanese 
settlements  in  the  peninsula.  These  Japanese  traders  and 
the  Korean  officials  behaved  toward  each  other  in  so  objec- 
tionable fashion  that  a  revolt  of  the  settlers  in  Fusan  arose 
in  1610,  in  the  effort  to  suppress  which  the  Koreans  were  at 
first  defeated ;  but  afterward,  being  re-enforced  strongly  from 
Seoul,  they  compelled  the  settlers  to  retire  from  all  the  three 
settlements;  and  thus  for  the  time  being  the  trade' between 
Japan  and  Korea  came  to  an  end.  When,  later,  the  Sho- 
gunate  Government  complied  with  the  demand  of  the  Korean 
Government  that  the  ringleaders  of  this  disturbance  should 
be  decapitated  and  their  heads  sent  to  Seoul,  the  trade  was 
re-established.  But  it  did  not  attain  its  previous  propor- 
tions; it  was  limited  to  twenty-five  vessels  annually,  and  the 
settlements  were  abandoned.  Similar  troubles  recurred  some 
thirty  years  later.  The  Shogun  of  that  period,  too,  caused 
the  offenders  to  be  arrested  and  handed  over  to  the  Korean 
authorities;  but  the  Court  at  Seoul  continued  its  refusal  to 
allow  the  commerce  with  the  Japanese  to  be  expanded. 

The  amount  of  contribution  made  by  Korea  to  the  civi- 
lization of  Japan  in  those  earlier  days  has  probably  been 
somewhat  exaggerated.  Both  these  countries  are  chiefly  in- 


186  IN   KOREA   WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

debted  to  China  for  the  elements  of  the  arts  and  of  letters, 
and  for  most  of  the  other  refinements  of  their  culture;  these 
came  to  Japan,  however,  to  a  considerable  extent  through 
Korea.  According  to  the  records  of  the  Japanese  themselves, 
in  the  century  before  the  Christian  era  Chinese  scholars  came 
to  Satsuma  through  Korea,  Tsushima,  and  the  intervening 
islands.  At  about  the  same  time  Koreans  also  brought  Chi- 
nese civilization  to  Japan.1  During  the  reign  of  the  Em- 
peror Kimmei  (555  A.D.),  according  to  Japanese  tradition, 
the  king  of  Kudara  in  Korea  sent  to  Japan  an  envoy  bearing 
an  image  of  Buddha  and  a  copy  of  the  Sutras.  But  while  the 
Minister-President  was  experimenting  with  its  worship,  the 
occurrence  of  a  pestilence  proved  that  the  ancestral  deities 
were  angry  at  the  intrusion  of  a  foreign  form  of  worship.2 
After  the  "subjugation  of  the  three  kingdoms  of  Korea  a 
number  of  Chinese  and  Koreans  came  to  settle  in  Japan.  In 
order  to  avert  confusion  in  family  names  and  titles  which 
might  have  arisen  from  this  cause,  an  investigation  of  family 
names  was  made  in  the  i43oth  year  after  the  Emperor  Jimmu 
(about  A.D.  770)."  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  there  are  prob- 
ably in  both  countries  families  which  have  in  their  veins  the 
mingled  blood  of  both  races. 

Relations  tending  to  exasperate  the  feeling  of  each  country 
against  the  other  continued  through  the  centuries  which  con- 
stituted the  Middle  Ages  in  Europe.  In  Japan  the  feudal 
system  was  approaching  its  more  elaborate  and  powerful 
development;  in  Korea  the  weakness  and  corruption  of  the 
Court,  the  ignorance,  suffering  from  oppression,  and  lawless- 
ness of  the  people  were  not  improving.  Thus  the  two  na- 
tions were  drawing  further  and  further  apart  and  were  fol- 
lowing the  paths  which  have  led  to  such  a  wide  divergence 

1  See  The  History  of  the  Empire  oj  Japan,  (volume  prepared  for  the 
World's  Columbian  Exposition  at  Chicago,- 1903),  p.  38  /. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  47. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  187 

in  the  now  existing  conditions — mentally,  politically,  and 
socially.  The  various  embassies  sent  by  Kublai  Khan  to 
Japan  during  the  years  of  1268-1274^.0.  came  via  Korea 
and  were  accompanied  by  Korean  officials.  The  attempted 
Mongol  invasions  of  Japan  were  assisted  by  Korea.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  peninsula  continued  to  suffer  from  the  at- 
tacks of  Japanese  pirates.  The  inhabitants  of  the  Southwest 
coasts  of  Japan  made  raids  upon  the  opposite  coasts,  engag- 
ing in  open  conflict  with  the  Korean  troops,  killing  their 
generals,  destroying  their  barracks,  and  carrying  away  as 
plunder,  horses,  ships,  and  stores  of  grain.  In  these  en- 
counters the  soldiers  of  Korea  showed  their  traditional  lack 
of  courage  in  the  field,  frequently  retreating  before  the 
Japanese  raiders  without  striking  a  single  blow.  Frequent 
envoys  were  sent  from  Korea  to  remonstrate  and  demand 
reparation;  and  one  of  these  took  back  with  him  (1377  A.D.) 
several  hundred  Koreans  who  had  been  made  prisoners  by 
the  Japanese  pirates,  but  were  returned  to  their  own  country 
by  Imagawa  Sadayo,  Governor  of  Kiushiu.  No  really 
effective  measures  to  stop  piracy  were,  however,  taken  by  the 
Japanese  Government  until  the  time  of  the  ex-Shogun  Yoshi- 
mitsu,  who  on  several  occasions  had  the  pirates  arrested  and 
handed  over  to  China,  the  suzerain  of  Korea.  For  later  on 
the  Japanese  pirates  associated  themselves  with  Chinese 
pirates  and  pursued  their  business  of  plunder  quite  impar- 
tially as  against  either  Koreans  or  Chinese.  When  the 
Koreans  took  reprisals  upon  those  inhabitants  of  Tsushima 
who  were  residing  in  the  southern  part  of  their  land,  the 
people  of  that  island  made  an  attack  upon  Fusan  and  de- 
stroyed its  fortifications  (1510  A.D.). 

The  first  notable  conflict  between  Korea  and  Japan  was 
the  invasion  of  Hideyoshi.  Various  motives  have  been  as- 
signed for  this  war-like  expedition;  the  real  motives  were 
probably  complex.  Hideyoshi  was  undoubtedly  angry  at 


1 88  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

Korea  for  her  refusal  to  open  the  country  to  trade  with 
Japan.  He  was  willing  to  take  his  revenge  for  the  assistance 
that  had  been  given  to  the  Yuan  dynasty  of  Mongols  in  their 
attacks  upon  Japan.1  But  he  was  especially  desirous  to  get 
at  China  through  Korea,  and  to  use  the  latter  country  as  a 
base  for  his  attack.  He  began  (1587  A.D.)  by  sending  a 
despatch  to  the  warden  of  Tsushima  directing  him  to  invite 
the  King  of  Korea  to  an  audience  with  the  Emperor  of  Japan; 
and  he  accompanied  the  invitation  with  a  threat  of  invasion 
unless  the  invitation  were  accepted.  Next,  having  quite 
thoroughly  "pacified"  (in  Caesar's  fashion)  his  own  country, 
he  sent  a  demand  for  presents — plainly  of  a  tributary  char- 
acter— with  the  same  threat  accompanying.  This  time  an 
envoy  from  his  own  person  assured  the  Koreans  that  unless 
they  complied  they  would  be  compelled  to  march  in  the  van 
of  the  Japanese  army  for  the  invasion  of  China.  Hideyoshi, 
when  this  insolent  demand  failed  of  its  purpose,  first  wor- 
shipped at  the  tomb  of  the  Empress  Jingo — the  reputed  con- 
queror of  Korea  in  most  ancient  times.  In  April,  1592,  the 
Japanese  invading  force,  which  consisted  according  to  the 
Japanese  records  of  130,000  in  eight  army  corps,  sailed  in  a 
fleet  manned  by  9,000  sailors  with  the  Generals  Konishi 
Yukinaga  and  Kato  Kiyomasa  leading  the  van.  They  were 
to  carry  out  the  threat  of  the  Taiko  for  the  punishment  and 
subjugation  of  Korea.  According  to  the  statement  of  the 
authority  we  are  following,2  Hideyoshi  expected  to  conquer 
China  in  two  years  and  contemplated  transferring  the  capital 
of  Japan  to  that  country.  "He  even  went  so  far  as  to  deter- 
mine the  routine  to  be  followed  in  the  removal  of  the  Japan- 
ese Court  to  China."  How  characteristic  is  this  detailed 
planning,  without  sufficient  regard  for  the  exigencies  of  time, 
the  enormous  intervening  obstacles,  and  the  possible  adverse 

1  The  History  of  the  Empire  oj  Japan,  p.  278  /. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  280. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  189 

will  of  heaven,  of  the  national  temperament  even  down  to 
the  present  time! 

It  is  not  necessary  to  our  purpose  to  follow  the  early  bril- 
liant successes  and  the  disastrous  ending  of  the  invasion  of 
Korea  by  Hideyoshi.  Both  nations  displayed  their  charac- 
teristic virtues  and  faults  during  this  period  of  intercourse  by 
way  of  conflict — the  knightly  courage  and  arrogant  over- 
confidence  of  the  Japanese,  the  passive  power  of  resistance 
and  the  weakness  and  political  corruption  of  the  Koreans. 
But  as  to  the  invasion  itself  our  sympathies  must  remain  with 
Korea;  it  was  without  sufficient  warrant,  conducted  incau- 
tiously, and  more  disastrous  in  its  result  to  the  invaders 
themselves  than  to  the  country  which  they  had,  for  the  time 
being,  desolated.  By  the  courage  and  skill  of  Admiral  Yi 
and  by  the  assistance  of  China,  the  forces  of  Japan  were 
finally,  after  a  period  of  seven  years,  so  reduced  that  Hide- 
yoshi, at  the  point  of  death,  recalled  them;  and  the  war 
came  to  an  end  in  1598.  The  terms  of  peace  agreed  to  were 
on  the  whole  humiliating  to  the  Japanese. 

The  great  lyeyasu,  the  founder  of  the  Tokugawa  Dynasty, 
took  measures,  repeatedly  and  patiently,  to  renew  those  rela- 
tions of  a  promising  friendly  character  which  had  been  dis- 
solved in  hatred  by  the  invasion  of  Hideyoshi.  He  sent  re- 
peated embassies  to  Korea,  restored  prisoners  that  had  been 
led  captive  at  the  time  of  the  Taiko's  invasion,  and  spared  no 
pains  to  make  the  Koreans  understand  that  a  decided  change 
of  policy  had  taken  place  in  the  Japanese  Government  toward 
their  country.  From  his  time  onward,  the  official  treatment 
given  to  Korea  by  Japan  has  been  conspicuous,  as  compared 
with  the  example  furnished  by  other  civilized  countries  under 
similar  trying  conditions,  jor  its  fairness  and  its  friendliness. 
This  fact  becomes  amusingly  obvious  when  we  compare  the 
way  in  which  the  claims  for  tribute  from  Korea  have  been 
made  by  the  two  countries,  China  and  Japan.  Under  the 


i  go  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Tokugawas  the  nominal  sovereigns  paid  the  bills;  but  the 
Korean  tribute-bearers  (sic)  had  a  largely  free  junketing 
expedition  of  three  months'  duration  at  the  expense  of  the 
Japanese.  Under  the  Manchu  Dynasty,  however,  the 
tribute  fixed  for  annual  payment  took  a  very  substantial 
shape;  it  included  100  ounces  of  gold,  1,000  ounces  of  silver, 
10,000  bags  of  rice,  2,000  pieces  of  silk,  10,000  pieces  of 
cotton  cloth,  10,000  rolls  (50  sheets  each)  of  large-sized 
paper,  and  other  less  important  items.  Even  then,  it  can 
be  seen,  the  Chinese  greatly  excelled  the  Japanese  in  their 
business  ability.  Moreover,  when  the  Koreans  pleaded  that 
the  payment  of  tribute  to  China  had  so  impoverished  them 
that  they  could  not  render  what  was  due  to  Japan,  the  Japan- 
ese forgave  them  the  obligation  (A.D.  I638).1  Nor  was  this 
the  last  time  in  which  the  forgiveness  of  debts  was  exercised 
toward  the  Korean  Government  in  a  manner  unaccustomed 
between  nations  of  conflicting  interests. 

Finally  the  Koreans,  having  obtained  the  consent  of  China, 
sent  to  Japan  a  letter  from  their  king,  together  with  some 
presents;  and  from  this  time  onward,  on  the  occasion  of  each 
change  of  Shogun,  Korean  envoys  came  to  the  country  to 
offer  congratulations.  The  Tokugawas,  on  their  side,  were 
careful  to  "treat  these  delegates  with  all  courtesy  and  con- 
sideration"; they  also  discontinued  the  offensive  custom 
which  the  Ashikaga  family  had  followed,  of  assuming  for  the 
Shogun  the  title  of  "King  of  Korea."  2  Meantime,  the  So 
family  improved  the  opportunity  which  their  position  as  in- 
termediaries between  Japan  and  Korea  afforded  to  renew 
and  increase  the  trade  relations  of  the  two  countries.  It  is 
probable  that  lasting  friendly  intercourse  would  have  been 
established  from  this  time  onward  if  it  had  not  been,  at  this 
period,  as  all  through  Korea's  unfortunate  history,  for  the 

1  See  Griffis,  The  Hermit  Nation,  p.  159. 

2  See  The  History  of  the  Empire  of  Japan,  p.  304, 


THE   PROBLEM:     HISTORICAL  191 

i 

baleful  influence  of  China.  This  fact  becomes  prominent  in 
all  the  foreign  relations  of  Korea  during  the  half  century 
following  the  early  attempts  to  open  the  Hermit  Kingdom  to 
intercourse  with  other  nations.  The  French  and  American 
expeditions  for  this  purpose  were  productive  only  of  the  result 
that  the  Koreans  became  more  obstinate  in  their  resistance 
to  outside  influences,  and  more  secure  in  their  pride  and 
confidence  in  their  ability  to  resist  auccessfuly  through  their 
superior  craft  and  courage  in  war.  These  expeditions  illus- 
trate, however,  the  policy  of  China  in  maintaining  its  claims 
of  suzerainty  over  Korea.  To  take,  for  example,  the  ex- 
perience of  the  United  States  in  dealing  with  this  policy,  it 
may  be  summarized  in  somewhat  the  following  way: 

The  destruction  of  the  American  schooner  General  Sher- 
man, in  1866,  was  the  occasion  of  some  desultory  correspond- 
ence between  the  American  and  the  Chinese  Governments. 
The  former  presented  the  matter  at  Peking  because  China 
was  supposed  to  sustain  some  sort  of  relationship  of  suzer- 
ainty, not  clearly  understood,  toward  Korea.  China,  how- 
ever, would  not  admit  the  existence  of  any  kind  of  bond  which 
made  her  responsible  for  Korean  acts;  the  Tsungli  Yamen 
said,  in  effect,  that  there  had  existed  from  ancient  times  a 
certain  dependency  by  Korea  upon  China;  but  they  denied 
in  express  words  that  it  was  of  such  a  nature  as  to  give  China 
any  right  to  control  or  to  interfere  with  the  administration  of 
Korean  foreign  or  domestic  affairs. 

It  was  precisely  this  attitude  which  was  the  fans  et  origo  of 
the  subsequent  trouble  between  China  and  Japan.  From 
the  Chinese  standpoint,  as  shown  by  official  declarations  and 
acts,  Korea  was  and  was  not  a  vassal  state.  She  was  so  when 
it  suited  China  actively  to  interfere,  and  not  so  when  it  was 
either  difficult  or  dangerous,  or  even  troublesome,  to  assume 
the  responsibilities  of  suzerainty.  China  was  not  even  willing 
to  act  the  part  of  intermediary  if  by  doing  so  she  could  be 


I92  IN  KOREA   WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

held  to  accept  the  onus  of  making  or  compelling  the  repara- 
tion which  America  demanded. 

Finally  the  United  States  Government  took  matters  in  its 
own  hands  and  the  expedition  under  Admiral  John  Rodgers 
was  sent  to  Korea  in  1871.  The  failure  of  that  expedition  to 
accomplish  anything  beyond  the  destruction  of  the  fort  on 
Kang-wha  Island,  and  Commodore  Shufeldt's  subsequent  at- 
tempt to  open  up  communication  with  the  Korean  Govern- 
ment, were  the  total  of  American  efforts  regarding  Korea  up 
to  the  time  when  the  Shufeldt  treaty  was  negotiated. 

After  the  fall  of  the  Tokugawa  Government  the  Korean 
Court  desisted  from  the  custom  of  sending  an  embassy  to 
Japan  to  congratulate  the  succession  to  the  place  of  supreme 
rule;  it  even  declared  its  determination  to  have  no  further 
relations  with  a  country  which  had  embraced  the  Western 
civilization.  When  the  Government  of  the  Restoration  sent 
an  envoy  to  Korea  to  announce  the  change  and  to  "confirm 
friendly  relations  between  the  two  states,"  the  Korean  Court 
refused  to  recognize  the  envoy  or  to  receive  his  message. 
The  real  reason  for  this  affront  was  the  influence  of  China; 
the  ostensible  reason  referred  to  the  fact  that  the  term  "  Great 
Empire  of  Japan"  was  employed  in  the  Imperial  letter.  As 
says  Brinkley:  "Naturally  such  conduct  roused  deep  um- 
brage in  Japan.  It  constituted  a  verdict  that,  whereas  the 
Old  Japan  had  been  entitled  to  the  respect  and  homage  of 
neighboring  Powers,  the  New  might  be  treated  with  con- 
tumely." Thus,  just  when  the  affairs  of  the  newly  centralized 
Government  were  assuming  that  condition  of  strength  and 
harmony  so  imperatively  demanded  for  the  present  welfare 
and  future  prospects  of  Japan,  dissension  arose  among  the 
Ministers  of  the  Crown  with  regard  to  the  policy  to  be  pur- 
sued toward  Korea.  Bitterness  of  feeling  had  already  been 
excited  by  the  fact  that  when  Japan  returned  to  their  country 
some  shipwrecked  Koreans,  and  accompanied  this  humane 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  193 

act  with  other  friendly  advances,  the  advances  were  repulsed 
and  the  Court  of  Korea  declined  even  to  receive  the  envoy. 
And  now,  among  the  leaders  of  Japan,  Saigo,  Soyeshima, 
Itagaki,  Goto,  and  Eto,  insisted  on  war  for  the  purpose  of 
avenging  the  insult;  Okubo,  Iwakura,  and  Ito  advocated 
peaceful  means.  Indeed,  the  so-called  "Saga  Party"  was 
confederated  with  these  two  purposes  chiefly  in  view:  (i) 
the  restoration  of  feudalism,  and  (2)  the  making  of  a  punitive 
war  upon  Korea.  The  peace  party  triumphed ;  the  Satsuma 
rebellion  followed ;  and  Japan  made  its  first  great  contribution 
of  treasure  and  blood  toward  the  maintenance  of  friendly  rela- 
tions with  a  Korea  that,  nominally  independent  so  far  as  its  own 
selfish  duplicity  chose  to  consider  it  so,  was  virtually  subservient 
to  all  manner  of  foreign  intrigue  and  unscrupulous  control. 

This  situation  and  the  subsequent  events,  however,  require 
a  more  detailed  consideration.  According  to  Brinkley,  the 
great  Saigo  Takamori,  who  was  a  member  of  the  Cabinet  at 
this  time,  and  who  had  been  Chief  of  the  Army  and  one  of 
the  most  powerful  agents  in  bringing  about  the  Restoration, 
"saw  in  a  foreign  war  the  sole  remaining  chance  of  achieving 
his  ambition  by  lawful  means.  The  Government's  con- 
scription scheme,  yet  in  its  infancy,  had  not  produced  even 
the  skeleton  of  an  army.  If  Korea  had  to  be  conquered,  the 
samurai  must  be  employed,  and  their  employment  would 
mean,  if  not  their  rehabilitation,  at  least  their  organization 
into  a  force  which,  under  Saigo's  leadership,  might  dictate  a 
new  polity.  Other  members  of  the  Cabinet  believed  that  the 
nation  would  be  disgraced  if  it  tamely  endured  Korea's  in- 
sults. Thus  several  influential  voices  swelled  the  clamor  for 
war.  But  a  peace  party  offered  strenuous  opposition.  Its 
members  perceived  the  collateral  issues  of  the  problem,  and 
declared  that  the  country  must  not  think  of  taking  up  arms 
during  a  period  of  radical  transition."1 

1  Japan,  IV,  p.  207. 


i94          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

The  part  of  China  at  this  time,  as  ever,  in  encouraging 
difficult  and  threatening  relations  between  Japan  and  Korea 
cannot  be  overlooked.  In  the  events  of  1866  the  Chinese  did 
not  maintain  neutrality  as  between  the  forces  of  the  Shogunate 
and  of  the  Imperial  party,  but  secretly  sold  arms  to  the  former. 
They  also  engaged  in  the  trade  of  kidnapping  and  selling  the 
children  of  indigent  Japanese.1  When,  after  the  treaty  of 
1871  was  concluded  (namely,  in  1872),  the  natives  of  Formosa 
murdered  some  shipwrecked  Loochoo  islanders,  the  Peking 
Government  declined  to  acknowledge  any  responsibility  for 
the  conduct  of  the  natives  of  Formosa.  And  it  was  only 
through  the  offices  of  the  British  Minister  that  the  Chinese, 
after  procrastinating  and  vacillating,  agreed  to  pay  100,000 
taels  to  the  families  of  the  murdered,  and  400,000  taels  toward 
the  cost  of  a  punitive  expedition  which  had  been  despatched 
against  the  Formosans. 

In  1875  another  envoy  was  sent  to  Korea,  but  he  returned 
with  the  customary  result;  and  in  August  of  the  same  year 
a  man-of-war  en  route  to  China,  which  had  put  into  the 
harbor  of  Chemulpo  for  fuel  and  water,  was  fired  upon  by 
the  Koreans.  Whereupon  the  crew  attacked  and  burned  the 
Korean  fortress.  And  now  the  same  question  recurred  in  a 
still  more  exasperating  form:  What  shall  Japan  do  with 
Korea,  for  whose  bad  conduct  China,  while  claiming  rights 
of  suzerainty  in  all  her  foreign  relations  and  actually  exer- 
cising a  determining  influence  over  her  internal  affairs,  never- 
theless declines  to  be  responsible ;  and  who  will  not  of  herself 
regard  any  of  those  regulations,  or  common  decencies  of 
international  intercourse,  which  modern  civilization  has  es- 
tablished as  binding  upon  all  countries? 

The  considerations  which  prevailed  on  former  occasions 
still  held  good  when  Korea  offered  this  new  affront.  The 
peace  party,  of  which  Marquis  Ito  and  Count  Inouye  were 
1  See  The  History  of  the  Empire  of  Japan,  p.  403  ff. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  195 

prominent  members — the  former  being  also  a  member  of  the 
Cabinet — thought  that  it  was  Japan's  first  duty  to  devote  all 
her  energies  to  the  task  of  domestic  improvement,  while  cul- 
tivating friendly  relations  with  her  neighbors.  The  problem 
which  confronted  the  advocates  of  peace  was  not  an  easy  one. 
Saigo  was  in  retirement  in  his  native  province,  surrounded 
by  his  devoted  supporters,  and  it  was  easily  to  be  seen  that  he 
would  take  umbrage  if  this  new  insult  was  allowed  to  pass 
unavenged,  and  would  possibly  make  it  the  pretext  for  some- 
thing more  serious  than  mere  remonstrance.  The  decision  in 
favor  of  peace  instead  of  war  required  a  high  order  of  courage. 
The  state  of  public  feeling  on  the  subject  and  the  powerful 
opposition  on  which  the  Government  had  to  count  was  well 
illustrated  by  a  petition  presented  nearly  a  year  later  by  the 
Tosa  Association,  over  the  signature  of  Kataoka  Kenkichi, 
afterward  speaker  of  the  Lower  House  of  the  Diet.  Ani- 
madverting upon  the  Government's  action,  the  petition  said : 

Our  people  knew  that  Korea  is  a  country  with  which  Japan  has 
had  intercourse  since  the  most  ancient  times.  Suddenly  the  in- 
tercourse was  broken  off,  and  when  we  sent  an  envoy  thither  he 
was  befooled  and  all  his  proposals  were  rejected.  Not  only  were 
the  Koreans  insulting,  but  they  threatened  hostile  resistance.  It 
was  proposed  to  send  a  second  envoy  to  remonstrate  (?)  against 
the  treatment  of  the  former  one,  but  the  government  suddenly 
changed  its  views  and  nothing  further  was  done.  The  people 
when  they  learned  this  became  enraged,  and  their  feelings  found 
vent  in  the  rebellion  of  the  samurai  of  Saga. 

This  petition  no  doubt  accurately  reflects  the  state  of  pub- 
lic feeling  at  the  time  to  which  it  refers.  The  Government 
did  not,  however,  yield  to  the  popular  clamor  for  war,  and 
this  was  due  in  no  small  measure  to  the  efforts  of  Marquis 
Ito.  He  counselled  patience  and  advised  his  colleagues  from 
the  outset  that  advantage  should  be  taken  of  the  opportunity 
to  place  the  relations  of  Japan  and  Korea  upon  a  new  basis 


196  IN  KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS  ITO 

by  means  of  a  treaty  of  peace  and  friendship.  These  mod- 
erate counsels  prevailed  and  the  Cabinet  decided  with  the 
Imperial  sanction  to  make  the  treaty,  although  two  of  its 
members,  Shimadzu  Saburo  and  Itagaki  subsequently  re- 
signed* 

Marquis  Ito  fully  appreciated  the  obstacles  which  the  al- 
leged suzerainty  of  China  opposed  to  the  establishment  of 
satisfactory  treaty  relations  between  Japan  and  Korea.  Ac- 
cordingly he  devoted  himself,  with  the  assistance  of  M.  Bois- 
sonade,  the  distinguished  French  publicist,  and  of  Mr. 
Inouye,  the  well-known  Japanese  authority,  to  a  careful 
study  of  this  question.  The  decision  reached  was  that  the 
bond  uniting  China  and  Korea  was  not,  either  historically  or 
according  to  the  rules  of  international  law,  that  of  suzerain 
and  vassal  state.  It  therefore  logically  followed  that  Korea 
must  be  approached  directly  and  dealt  with  as  an  independent 
Power.  The  importance  of  this  decision  cannot  be  over- 
estimated. It  was  the  first  formal  recognition  of  Korean 
national  independence.  More  than  that,  it  was  the  declara- 
tion on  the  part  of  Japan  of  a  policy  having  in  view  the  po- 
litical, commercial  and  economical  progress  of  her  neighbor. 
By  the  treaty  of  1876  Japan  abandoned  all  of  her  own  ancient 
claims  to  suzerainty  and  did  what  she  could  to  place  Korea 
upon  the  high  road  to  prosperous  national  development  which 
she  herself  was  travelling.  No  friend  of  Japan  will  claim 
that  it  was  an  entirely  altruistic  policy.  Her  action  was  dic- 
tated as  much  by  motives  of  intelligent  self-interest  as  by 
consideration  for  Korea.  The  fate  of  the  peninsular  kingdom 
was  of  vital  importance  to  Japan.  As  an  appanage  of  China 
its  condition  was  hazardous.  China  had  from  ancient  times 
claimed  suzerainty  over  all  surrounding  nations,  but  those 
claims  had  never  proved  a  safeguard  nor  prevented  the  sub- 
jugation or  absorption  of  these  so-called  vassal  states  by 
other  Powers.  In  fact,  they  were  an  element  of  weakness  in 


THE   PROBLEM:     HISTORICAL  197 

quarrels  where  China  herself  was  principal;  for  it  might 
easily  happen  that  the  vassal  would  be  exposed  to  attack, 
in  case  China  herself  could  not  easily  be  reached.  This  was 
especially  the  truth  as  regarded  Korea,  concerning  whom 
China  had  given  direct  proof  that  while  prepared  to  claim  all 
the  prerogatives  of  suzerainty  when  it  implied  no  risk  to 
herself,  she  was  only  too  likely,  when  a  strong  Power  threaten- 
ened,  to  shirk  all  responsibility  and  abandon  Korea  to  her 
fate.  To  treat  with  Korea  as  an  independent  nation  and 
thus  to  set  an  example  which  would  in  all  likelihood  be  fol- 
lowed by  other  Powers,  seemed  the  best  way  of  avoiding 
such  a  catastrophe.  At  the  same  time  there  was  good  reason 
to  hope,  even  confidently  to  expect,  that  Korea,  drawn  into 
intimate  intercourse  with  the  world,  would  be  freed  from  the 
trammels  which  prevented  progress,  and  would  gradually 
attain  a  condition  where  foreign  aggression  would  be  impos- 
sible. 

Count  Kuroda  and  Count  Inouye  were  appointed  First  and 
Second  Envoys,  respectively,  for  the  negotiation  of  the  treaty. 
The  representatives  of  the  Treaty  Powers  were  frankly  in- 
formed of  the  objects  of  the  mission.  Before  he  left,  Count 
Inouye  called  upon  Mr.  Bingham,  the  American  Minister, 
who  cordially  sympathized  with  the  Government's  intentions, 
and  borrowed  Bayard  Taylor's  abridged  history  of  Commo- 
dore Perry's  expedition.  The  Count  said  he  feared  that  the 
Koreans  might  show  signs  of  obduracy,  in  which  case  it  would 
become  necessary  for  his  colleague  and  himself  to  have  re- 
course to  some  of  the  measures  which  Commodore  Perry 
found  so  efficacious.  Inouye  wished  to  have  the  book  so 
that  he  could  refresh  his  memory  and  be  better  perfected  in 
the  part  if  it  became  necessary  to  play  it.1 

As  before  intimated,  the  Japanese  Government  was  anxious 

1  This  is  on  the  authority  of  Mr.  D.  W.  Stevens,  whose  acquaintance 
with  the  facts  is  most  accurate  and  full. 


198  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

that  the  Treaty  of  1876  should  be  followed  by  like  Treaties 
between  Korea  and  other  Powers.  It  cordially  tendered  its 
good  offices  when  Commodore  Shufeldt  visited  Japan  pre- 
vious to  the  negotiation  of  the  treaty  concluded  by  him,  and 
on  subsequent  occasions  did  what  was  possible  to  facilitate 
the  conclusion  of  other  treaties  with  Korea.  Its  policy  in 
that  regard  was  illustrated  in  "an  interesting  way  by  the  state- 
ment of  Count  Inouye,  then  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  to 
Mr.  Bingham  in  1882,  with  reference  to  the  appointment  of 
General  Foote,  the  first  American  Minister  to  Korea.  He 
said  to  Mr.  Bingham,  as  the  latter  reported  to  Secretary 
Frelinghuysen,  that  the  action  of  the  American  Government 
"in  ratifying  so  promptly  its  treaty  with  Korea  and  accredit- 
ing a  minister  to  that  kingdom  gave  great  satisfaction  to  His 
Imperial  Japanese  Majesty's  Government,  and  was  accepted 
as  another  evidence  of  the  policy  of  justice  so  often  mani- 
fested by  the  United  States  toward  the  states  of  Asia."  He 
also  said  that  it  was  considered  an  act  of  friendship  toward 
Japan  as  well  as  Korea. 

In  considering  all  the  subsequent  relations  of  Japan  and 
Korea  two  things  should  be  kept  distinctly  in  view  as  deter- 
mining questions  of  justice  and  injustice,  of  wisdom  or  un- 
wisdom, in  the  policy  of  both  countries.  In  the  first  place: 
In  order  to  conclude  "a  treaty  of  commerce  and  amity  which 
recognized  the  independence  of  Korea,"  Japan  rather  than 
engage  in  a  punitive  war,  had  encountered  in  its  own  "terri- 
tory a  rebellion  which  cost  the  Government  of  the  Restora- 
tion no  less  than  60,000  men  and  416,000,000  yen.  And 
second,  in  allowing  this  treaty  to  go  through  in  the  form  which 
it  actually  took,  China  had  been  convicted  of  the  duplicity  and 
wholly  untenable  character  of  its  claims  to  exercise  the  rights 
of  suzerainty  over  Korea.  On  the  latter  point  Minister 
Rockhill1  affirms  that  the  conclusion  in  1876  of  the  treaty  of 

1  China's  Intercourse  with  Korea  from  the  XVth  Century  to  1895,  P-  *  /• 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  199 

Kang-wha  between  Japan  and  Korea  "marks  the  beginning 
of  a  new  era  in  the  history  of  the  latter  country,  its  entry  into 
the  family  of  nations."  "Prior  to  the  Kang-wha  treaty," 
this  authority  goes  on  to  say:  "The  nature  of  Korea's  relation 
to  China  was  a  puzzle  to  Western  nations.  They  were  told, 
at  one  and  the  same  time,  that  Korea,  though  a  vassal  and 
tributary  state  of  China,  was  entirely  independent  so  far  as 
her  government,  religion,  and  intercourse  with  foreign  states 
were  concerned — a  condition  of  things  hardly  compatible 
with  our  ideas  of  either  absolute  dependence  or  complete  in- 
dependence." 

"In  1871  the  Chinese  Foreign  Office  wrote  the  United 
States  Minister  in  Peking,  Mr.  Frederick  F.  Low,  who  had 
informed  it  of  his  recent  appointment  by  his  Government  as 
special  envoy  to  Korea,  and  was  about  proceeding  there, 
that:  'Korea  is  regarded  as  a  country  subordinate  to  China, 
yet  is  wholly  independent  in  everything  that  relates  to  her 
government,  her  religion,  her  prohibitions,  and  her  laws;  in 
none  of  these  things  has  China  hitherto  interfered.'"  l  But 
the  first  Article  of  the  treaty  signed  in  1876  with  Japan  reads 
as  follows:  "Chosen,  being  an  independent  state,  enjoys  the 
same  sovereign  rights  as  does  Japan";  and  in  1882  the  King 
of  Korea  wrote  to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  when 
the  two  countries  were  about  to  enter  into  treaty  relations, 
pledging  his  Government  that  the  terms  of  the  treaty  should 
be  "carried  into  effect  according  to  the  laws  of  independent 
states." 

It  was  this  not  merely  theoretical  suzerainty,  but  a  per- 
nicious practice  of  interference  and  dictation  on  the  part  of 
China  over  Korea,  joined  to  the  utterly  corrupt  and  weak 
government  of  the  latter  country,  which  led  inevitably  to 
the  war  between  the  former  and  Japan.  Similar  claims  of 
the  Government  of  Peking,  under  existing  political  and  social 

1  Foreign  Relations  of  the  United  States,  1871,  p.  112. 


200  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

conditions,  over  the  weaker  states  which  were  alleged  to  be 
dependencies  of  this  Government,  the  civilized  nations  of  the 
world  have  repeatedly  found  themselves  compelled  to  dis- 
regard; and  this,  in  the  interests  of  the  dependent  people 
themselves. 

The  mental  attitude  and  practical  treatment  which  the 
Korean  Court  and  Yang-ban  class  in  general  have  accorded 
to  the  treaties  with  Japan  and  other  foreign  nations  have  been 
essentially  unchanged  from  the  beginning.  All  depends  upon 
the  apparent  immediate  effect  of  foreign  intercourse  on  their 
ancient  rights  and  privileges  of  office-bearing  and  official 
" squeezing."  The  Mins,  the  family  of  the  late  Queen,  have 
always  been  notoriously  corrupt;  and,  if  the  Queen  herself 
was  ever  sincerely  opposed  to  the  anti-foreign  policy,  it  is  likely 
that  the  opposition  had  its  source  in  the  selfish  interests  of 
her  own  family  and  in  her  hatred  of  the  King's  father,  the 
Tai  Won  Kun.  The  latter  was  always  consistently  and 
energetically  opposed  to  all  foreign  intercourse. 

The  condition  of  affairs  in  Korea  preceding  the  troubles 
of  1882  and  1884  is  graphically  and  truthfully  described  by 
the  report  of  Ensign  George  C.  Foulk,  of  the  United  States 
Navy,  in  which  he  submitted  to  his  Government  information 
relative  to  the  revolutionary  attempt  of  the  latter  date.  With 
regard  to  the  Government  of  Korea,  Ensign  Foulk  says  that 
"it  has  been  for  an  indefinite  period  under  the  practical  con- 
trol of  the  Min  Family,  of  which  the  Queen  of  Korea  is  at 
present  the  highest  representative.  The  blood  of  this  family 
is  largely  Chinese,  and  it  has  been  always,  and  remains,  the 
desire  and  aim  of  this  family  to  subject,  and  retain  in  sub- 
jection, their  country  to  the  suzerainty  of  China.  Members 
of  this  family  are  accorded  special  privileges  by  China,  and 
are,  to  the  exclusion  of  other  Korean  noble  families,  on  com- 
paratively social  terms  with  the  Court  of  China,  which  they 
visit  frequently.  The  family  is  very  large,  and  includes  the 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  201 

highest  number  of  great  nobles,  with  the  greatest  landed 
estates,  of  all  the  families  of  the  nobility  in  Korea.  .  .  .  The 
great  body  of  Korean  people  know  little  or  nothing  of  the 
politics  of  their  Government,  nor  do  they  dare  to  use  any 
information  they  may  by  chance  possess  on  Government 
affairs." 

Ensign  Foulk  then  goes  on  to  draw  attention  to  the  re- 
markable phenomenon  that,  while  the  Chinese  "are  detested 
for  their  appearance,  conduct  and  customs,"  nothing  by  way 
of  cruelty  and  fraud  that  they  may  do  awakens  practical 
resentment;  but  the  Japanese,  on  the  contrary,  while  "even 
admired  by  Koreans  of  the  present  day  for  their  appearance, 
customs,  and  conduct,  are  so  hated  that  the  "Koreans  are 
always  ready  for  the  license  when  they  may  vent  this  feeling 
in  shedding  Japanese  blood."  With  regard  to  the  real  atti- 
tude of  the  Queen's  family,  he  further  affirms:  "This  energy 
of  the  Mins  [namely,  in  conducting  negotiations  for  a  treaty 
with  the  United  States]  has  given  them  the  mistaken  reputa- 
tion of  being  members  of  the  progressive  party  in  Korea;  in 
fact,  they  only  acted  in  obedience  to  their  hereditary  lord, 
China,  without  a  thought  patriotic  to  Korea,  beyond  that 
they,  in  common  with  all  Koreans  at  that  time,  felt  the 
danger  of  the  seizure  of  a  part  of  Korea  by  Russia." 

Now,  however,  the  Tai  Won  Kun,  the  bitter  enemy  of  the 
Queen,  had  his  turn  at  the  wheel  on  which  the  fate  of  this 
unfortunate  country  was  revolving,  first  in  one  direction  and 
then  in  the  other.  In  July,  1882,  taking  advantage  of  dis- 
affection among  the  soldiers  of  the  capital,  occasioned  by 
short  rations  issued  by  the  Mins  (a  "steal  in  army  con- 
tracts"), he  directed  their  revolt  against  that  family,  and, 
having  disposed  of  its  members,  seized  the  Government  for 
himself.  Many  Mins  were  killed;  Min  Tai-ho  (father  of 
Min  Yong-ik)  was  left,  supposed  to  be  fatally  wounded,  in  a 
ditch;  poison  was  to  be  administered  to  the  Queen,  but  a 


202  IN  KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS  ITO 

/ 

maid,  personating  her  in  disguise,  took  the  poison  and  died 
while  the  Queen  escaped.  Min  Yong-ik  shaved  his  head, 
and,  after  hiding  in  the  mountains  three  days,  walked  to 
Fusan  whence  he  escaped  to  Japan  in  the  guise  of  a  Bud- 
dhist priest.  For  his  disobedience  to  its  command  and  his 
attempt  to  annihilate  its  royal  servants,  the  Mins,  the  Chinese 
Government  sent  its  troops  to  Korea  and  carried  off  into 
banishment  the  Tai  Won  Kun;  but  the  power  of  the  Mins 
in  China's  behalf  having  been  greatly  cut  down  by  the 
revolt,  Chinese  troops  were  placed  in  Seoul  to  strengthen  the 
remainder,  and  continued  there  after  the  revolt  was  sup- 
pressed. 

It  was,  then,  in  connection  with  the  armed  interference  of 
China  in  a  domestic  quarrel  between  the  wife  and  the  father 
of  the  Emperor, — China,  which  had  repeatedly  disclaimed 
all  responsibility  for  Korean  internal  affairs  and  which  had 
permitted  Korea  to  make  a  foreign  treaty  on  terms  of  equal- 
ity,— that  the  Korean  Court  offered  again,  in  1882,  another 
affront  to  Japan.  This  time,  also,  the  insult  was  written  in 
blood.  For  through  no  fault  or  offence  on  their  part,  a 
number  of  Japanese  were  killed  in  the  course  of  a  domestic 
riot,  and  the  Japanese  Minister  was  obliged  to  flee  from  the  cap- 
ital and  to  put  to  sea  in  a  fishing  boat,  whence  he  was  rescued 
by  an  English  vessel.  The  provocation  was  greater  than 
that  for  which  western  nations  have  frequently  exacted 
exemplary  vengeance,  much  greater  than  the  offence  given 
by  the  rebellious  Daimyo  -of  Choshin,  for  which  the  Treaty 
Powers  had  held  Japan  herself  so  strictly  to  account.  Never- 
theless, Japan  made  due  allowance  for  the  irresponsibility  and 
weakness  of  the  Korean  Government.  An  apology,  an  in- 
demnity of  550,000  yen  (50,000  being  for  private  sufferers), 
and  a  Convention  of  two  articles  defining  treaty  limits,  etc. 
(signed  August  30,  1882),  were  the  sum  of  her  demands. 
The  payment  of  400,000  yen  of  the  indemnity  was  afterward 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  203 

remitted.     The  instructions  of  the  Emperor  of  Japan  com- 
manding this  to  be  done  contained  the  following  declaration  : 

We  hereby  remit  four  hundred  thousand  yen  of  the  indemnity 
of  five  hundred  thousand  yen  due  from  Korea,  which  sum  we 
sincerely  trust  will  be  employed  to  supplement  the  funds  already 
devoted  to  the  introduction  of  civilization  into  the  country. 

It  is  a  curious  coincidence  that  the  Minister  who,  on  the 
gth  of  November,  1884,  transmitted  this  message,  was  obliged 
only  a  few  weeks  later  to  flee  from  Seoul  like  his  predecessor, 
on  account  of  the  perpetration  of  outrages  against  Japan, 
even  greater  than  those  for  which  the  indemnity  had  been 
exacted. 

This  renewal  of  the  stipulated  condition  of  commerce  and 
amity  between  Japan  and  Korea,  with  its  renewed  act  of 
forgiveness  on  the  part  of  the  former  toward  the  latter,  only 
prepared  the  way  for  the  more  serious  outrages  of  1884. 
The  Chinese  force  which  was  sent  to  support  the  anti-foreign 
and  unprogressive  policy  of  the  Min  family,  proceeded  to  take 
up  permanent  quarters  in  extensive  camps  within  the  walls  of 
Seoul.  They  erected  a  fort  close  by  the  palace  gates  and  two 
others  outside  of  the  city,  in  a  situation  to  defend  the  ap- 
proaches from  the  river  Han.  A  little  later  they  increased 
the  number  of  Chinese  troops  in  Seoul  to  3,000  men.  In  the 
opinion  of  Ensign  Foulk,  the  confession  forced  from  certain 
Korean  officials  revealed  the  truth  that  these  foreign  soldiers 
were  quartered  in  the  capital  city  in  order  to  enforce  a  secret 
agreement  between  China  and  the  Mins,  representing  Korea, 
which  gave  to  the  Peking  Government  rights  of  suzerainty 
such  as  it  had  never  even  claimed  before. 

Then  began  an  increasingly  bitter  strife  between  the  re- 
actionary party,  supported  by  Chinese  soldiers,  and  the  re- 
form party,  the  leaders  of  which  had  been  abroad  (chiefly  in 
Japan)  and  had  returned  determined  to  exert  themselves  to 


204  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

bring  about  reforms  and  to  introduce  the  benefits  of  Western 
civilization  in  their  native  land.  Japan,  however,  had  given 
the  frankest  and  most  sincere  assurances  that  such  troops  as 
it  kept  in  Korea  were  only  for  the  defence  of  its  own  Legation, 
and  that  it  aimed  to  assist  Korea  in  all  its  efforts  at  progress. 
"  From  Japan,"  says  Ensign  Foulk,  "  came  a  number  of  quali- 
fied Japanese,  who  were  held  in  readiness  to  begin  teaching 
the  use  of  machinery,  the  manufacture  of  paper,  pottery,  etc. 
Steps  were  also  taken  towards  securing  a  director  of  agricul- 
ture, school  teachers,  and  several  other  foreigners  for  service 
under  the  Korean  Government.  In  regard  to  these  the  ini- 
tiatory steps  were  taken  in  consultation  with  the  progresssive 
leaders,  including  the  King,  in  which  I  was  warmly  invited 
to  have  a  voice."  1  Gradually,  however,  in  part  through 
fear,  in  part  through  jealousy,  and  perhaps  also  with  some 
degree,  in  certain  cases,  of  more  intelligent  and  honorable 
reasons,  certain  leading  members  of  the  progressive  party 
fell  more  and  more  under  Chinese  influences. 

How  insolently  the  foreign  soldiers  from  China  during  this 
period  treated  the  Koreans  may  be  learned  from  the  following 
incident.  In  August,  1884,  a  Korean  officer  of  high  rank  was 
openly  seized  by  a  party  of  Chinese  soldiers  and  beaten  by 
them  in  the  street  so  severely  that  his  life  was  despaired  of; 
this  was  the  outcome  of  a  quarrel  between  the  Chinese  Com- 
missioner and  the  Korean  officer  about  the  right  of  passage 
through  a  gateway  of  the  Korean  officer's  house,  which  was 
next  to  that  of  the  Chinese  officer.  "  On  the  contrary,"  says 
Ensign  Foulk,  "the  attitude  of  the  Japanese  in  Seoul  had 
always  been  such  as  to  indicate  an  earnest  desire  to  aid  the 
party  of  progress,  and  to  be  on  peaceable,  friendly  terms  with 
the  people.  The  conduct  of  Japanese  citizens  toward 
Koreans  was  commendable.  As  indicating  great  considera- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  Japanese  Government  toward  Korea, 

1  Quoted  from  the  paper  referred  to  above. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  205 

was  the  restraint  placed  upon  Japanese  merchants  establish- 
ing themselves  in  Seoul,  by  the  Japanese  Minister,  who  evi- 
dently in  doing  so  followed  the  spirit  of  the  treaties,  by  which 
the  capital  was  not  to  be  thrown  open  to  trade  if  the  Chinese 
left." 

When  their  factional  strifes  had  the  customary  expression 
in  revolution,  arson,  and  bloodshed,  the  Koreans,  aided  by 
the  Chinese  soldiers,  turned  upon  the  Japanese.  The  sub- 
sequent occurrences  and  the  way  that  the  Japanese  Govern- 
ment dealt  with  them  are  narrated  in  the  words  of  one  who 
was  an  eye-witness  of,  and  an  actor  in,  them : * 

With  subsequent  occurrences  I  am  personally  familiar,  having 
accompanied  Count  Inouye,  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  when 
he  went  as  Special  Ambassador  to  Korea  to  settle  the  difficulty. 

This  was  another  occasion  when  public  excitement  ran  very 
high  in  Japan.  The  nation  was  clamoring  for  war  with  China, 
and  the  feeling  of  keen  indignation  in  Army  and  Navy  circles  was 
strongly  marked.  Following  so  closely  upon  the  events  of  1882 
this  new  outrage  appeared  to  all  classes  to  be  the  last  straw.  The 
Government,  however,  then  under  the  premiership  of  Marquis 
Ito,  was  determined  to  have  recourse  to  the  last  resort  only  after 
every  means  of  honorable  accommodation  had  been  exhausted. 
As  Marquis  Ito's  mission  to  China  subsequently  showed,  it  was 
also  determined  to  settle  once  and  for  all,  so  far  as  that  could  be 
done,  the  question  of  China's  right  forcibly  to  interfere  in  Korean 
domestic  brawls,  which  was  really  the  gravest  feature  of  the 
occurrence. 

The  choice  of  an  official  of  Count  Inouye's  high  rank  showed 
the  importance  which  the  government  attached  to  the  mission. 
The  designation  of  Admiral  Kabayama  and  General  Takashima, 
typical  representatives  of  the  prevailing  feeling  in  Army  and  Navy 
circles,  to  accompany  him,  was  most  sagacious.  It  was  proof  to 

1  For  this  account,  as  here  given  verbatim,  I  am  indebted  to  the  Hon. 
D.  W.  Stevens,  who  was  at  the  time  of  my  visit,  "Adviser  to  the  Korean 
Council  of  State  and  Counsellor  of  the  Resident-General." 


206  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

the  Army  and  Navy,  as  well  as  to  the  people  at  large,  that  nothing 
would  be  done  in  the  dark,  and  that  no  arrangement  would  be 
concluded  in  anywise  damaging  to  Japan's  honor  or  prestige. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  there  was  good  ground  for  indigna- 
tion in  Japan.  A  domestic  revolution  had  taken  place  in  Seoul, 
attended  by  many  of  the  incidents  common  where  government  is 
"  despotism  tempered  by  assassination."  But  neither  Japan  nor 
her  agents  were  responsible  for  that.  Mr.  Takezoye,  the  Japanese 
Minister,  had  gone  to  the  Palace  with  his  bodyguard,  at  the  King's 
request,  to  guard  the  royal  person.  It  was  a  technical  mistake, 
no  doubt  on  the  Minister's  part,  for  he  should  not  have  interfered 
in  the  matter,  or,  at  the  most,  should  have  asked  the  King  to  come 
to  the  Legation.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  acted  in  good 
faith.  He  was  an  amiable  scholar  rather  than  a  diplomat  and 
had  always  maintained  the  most  cordial  personal  relations  with 
.the  King.  The  latter  was  never  in  any  sense  a  prisoner  in  his 
hands,  as  was  shown  conclusively  by  the  visit  of  the  foreign 
representatives.  The  populace  of  Seoul,  egged  on  by  the  con- 
servatives, took  a  different  view,  however,  as  did  also  the  large 
force  of  Chinese  troops  gathered  at  the  Chinese  Legation.  The 
former  slaughtered  all  the  Japanese  they  could  reach,  and  the 
latter,  some  3,000  in  number,  in  company  with  several  hundred 
Korean  soldiers,  attacked  the  Japanese  soldiers.  The  little  Jap- 
anese force  (143  in  number,  not  400  as  Hulbert  states)  beat  them 
off  with  heavy  loss,  without  themselves  suffering  any  serious 
casualties.  By  that  time,  however,  the  conservatives  had  gained 
the  upper  hand  in  the  palace.  The  King  informed  Mr.  Takezoye 
that  he  did  not  require  further  assistance  from  him,  preferring  to 
be  guarded  by  his  own  soldiers;  whereupon  the  Minister,  as  in 
duty  bound,  returned  to  the  Legation.  He  found  his  position 
untenable,  however,  and  resolved  to  go  to  Chemulpo.  There  were 
about  200  non-combatants  at  the  Legation  to  be  cared  for,  among 
them  many  women  and  children.  Guarding  these  as  best  they 
could  the  little  band  of  soldiers  started  for  the  city  gate  through 
streets  rilled  with  a  hostile  mob.  It  was  a  dangerous  march;  a 
march  which  foreigners  who  were  in  Seoul  at  the  time  described  to 
me  with  admiration.  Numbers  of  armed  Koreans  were  gathered 


I 

bfl 

C 
O 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  207 

to  oppose  it,  not  the  least  formidable  being  those  who  threw 
stones  and  other  missiles  from  the  house  tops.  At  one  point  some 
Korean  soldiers  brought  out  Gatling  guns,  but  these  were  charged 
and  disabled  before  any  use  could  be  made  of  them.  The  Jap- 
anese forced  their  way,  finally,  through  the  West  Gate,  and  thence 
on  to  Chemulpo,  with  casualties  of  one  killed  and  a  number 
wounded.  The  Legation  was  looted  and  set  on  fire  several  hours 
after  it  was  deserted,  and  was  completely  destroyed. 

Mr.  Takezoye  was  at  Chemulpo  when  Count  Inouye  arrived  on 
the  3ist  of  December.  The  Count  was  also  met  by  Mr.  von 
Mollendorff,  a  high  official  of  the  Chinese  Customs,  detailed  for 
duty  in  Korea,  who  likewise  acted  in  a  diplomatic  capacity. 
Count  Inouye  informed  him  that  he  intended  to  go  to  Seoul  at 
once  and  to  demand  an  audience  at  the  earliest  practicable  mo- 
ment. Mr:  von  Mollendorff  had  various  reasons  to  urge  for 
delay,  but  Count  Inouye  swept  them  aside,  and  the  Embassy 
proceeded  to  Seoul  the  next  day;  it  was  accompanied  by  about 
400  soldiers,  a  smaller  force  having  been  left  at  Chemulpo.  In 
Seoul,  where  they  arrived  that  night,  the  Ambassador  and  suite 
were  lodged  in  the  yamen  of  the  Governor  of  the  City,  just  outside 
the  West  Gate.  The  same  night  the  Ambassador  presented  his 
formal  request  for  an  immediate  audience.  It  met  with  the 
customary  Oriental  reception:  His  Majesty  was  not  in  robust 
health;  the  Ambassador  himself  must  be  tired  and  in  need  of 
rest  after  his  long  journey;  the  attention  of  His  Majesty  was 
occupied  with  preparations  for  a  fitting  reception  of  His  Excel- 
lency, and  so  on.  Mr.  von  Mollendorff  was  kept  very  busy 
running  back  and  forth,  but  finally  it  was  made  clear  to  the  minds 
of  the  King's  adv.isers  that  Count  Inouye  meant  exactly  what  he 
said,  and  that  disagreeable  things  might  happen  if  he  did  not  have 
his  way. 

The  audience  was  finally  appointed  for  January  3d.  On  the 
morning  of  that  day  the  cavalcade  set  forth,  a  military  band 
trained  by  a  foreign  band-master  in  the  van;  then  a  mounted 
guard  of  honor;  then  the  Ambassador,  accompanied  by  Admiral 
Kabayama  and  General  Takashima  and  followed  by  his  sec- 
retaries,, and  bringing  up  the  rear  a  company  of  infantry.  As 


2o8  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

the  procession  passed  through  the  Gate  and  emerged  into  the  wide 
street  leading  to  the  East  Gate,  a  curious  and  inspiriting  spectacle 
presented  itself.  The  morning  was  fresh  and  clear;  the  air  crisp 
and  invigorating,  and  the  broad,  sunny  street  as  far  as  the  eye 
could  see  was  one  mass  of  gaily  clad  humanity,  men  dressed  in 
coats  of  every  color,  white,  as  is  usual,  predominating.  The 
crowds  parted  before  the  head  of  the  procession  like  waves  be- 
neath the  prow  of  a  ship;  the  Korean  police  ran  alongside  plying 
their  many-thonged  whips  with  indiscriminate  zeal;  and  then, 
as  if  to  add  the  last  queer  touch  to  the  whole  proceeding,  the 
band  struck  up  " Dixie." 

Nor  did  odd  happenings  end  here.  When  the  procession  arrived 
at  the  triple  gates  of  the  Palace,  the  centre  gate  was  closed.  Count 
Inouye  halted  the  line  immediately  and  demanded  the  reason.  It 
was  explained  by  Mr.  Mollendorff  that  the  centre  gate  was  reserved 
for  the  King,  and  that  the  side  gates  were  used  by  the  highest 
dignitaries.  Count  Inouye  replied  that  he  was  an  Ambassador, 
the  personal  representative  of  his  sovereign,  and  that  as  such  he 
could  not  pass  through  an  inferior  entrance.  Back  went  the 
messenger  behind  the  barred  gate,  and  in  a  few  minutes  appeared 
again  breathlessly  explaining  that  to  their  great  chagrin  and  regret, 
royal  etiquette,  binding  upon  His  Majesty  as  upon  his  lowest  sub- 
ject, could  not  be  disregarded.  Upon  that  Count  Inouye  blandly 
retorted  that  he  also  was  bound  by  etiquette,  immutable  and  un- 
changeable; and  that  if  the  gate  was  not  opened  within  three 
minutes,  much  to  his  regret  he  would  be  obliged  to  retrace  his 
steps  and  to  report  to  his  Imperial  Master  this  new  slight  to  Japan. 
The  gate  was  opened  without  further  delay. 

After  that  the  audience  passed  off  smoothly.  Count  Inouye 
was  careful  to  impress  upon  the  King's  mind,  as  upon  the  minds 
of  his  advisers,  that  while  his  mission  was  one  of  peace,  much 
depended  upon  the  sincerity  and  promptitude  with  which  Korea 
met  Japan's  just  demands  for  redress  and  upon  the  guarantees 
she  gave  against  the  recurrence  of  like  causes  of  complaint.  The 
negotiations  throughout  were  conducted  in  that  spirit.  The  Am- 
bassador was  kindly  and  considerate,  but  would  tolerate  no  palter- 
ing or  double-dealing.  He  couched  his  demands  in  firm  but 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  209 

friendly  language,  made  every  allowance  for  the  embarrassing 
position  in  which  the  King  found  himself,  placed  the  responsibility 
for  what  had  happened  where  it  belonged,  but  made  it  very  clear 
all  the  while  that  neither  he  nor  his  government  would  be  trifled 
with.  This  was  shown  in  a  sensational  way  at  the  first  formal 
meeting  of  the  Ambassador  with  the  Korean  plenipotentiaries. 
The  meeting  had  hardly  convened  when  suddenly  a  bustle  was 
heard  in  the  courtyard,  and,  without  further  notice,  the  Chinese 
Consul-General  entered,  suavely  bowing  to  those  present.  Pay- 
ing no  attention  to  him,  Count  Inouye  sprang  to  his  feet  and  de- 
manded of  the  Chief  Korean  Plenipotentiary  what  the  intrusion 
meant,  and  whether  the  Chinese  official  had  ventured  upon  this 
extraordinary  step  with  his  knowledge  and  consent.  If  that  were 
the  case,  he  would  regard  it  as  his  duty  to  break  off  the  negotia- 
tions at  once,  for  the  Japanese  Government  would  not  tolerate  for 
a  moment  any  interference  of  that  kind,  and  would  warmly  resent 
Korea's  connivance  with  it.  There  was  a  hasty  disavowal  on  the 
Korean  side,  the  Consul-General  lamely  adding  that  as  China  and 
Japan  and  Korea  were  friends,  and  as  the  matter  under  discussion 
was  of  interest  to  all  three,  he  had  come  of  his  own  accord  to 
participate  in  a  friendly  way  in  the  proceedings.  He  thereupon 
withdrew  somewhat  less  blithely  than  he  had  entered.  Count 
Inouye  then  repeated  what  he  had  said  and  gave  the  Korean 
plenipotentiaries  clearly  to  understand  that  he  would  not  tolerate 
the  repetition  of  such  childish  antics,  but  would  regard  them,  if 
again  attempted,  as  reason  for  the  gravest  offence.  This  warning 
had  its  effect;  the  negotiations  thereafter  proceeded  expeditiously 
and  the  Convention  was  signed  on  the  gth  of  January.  It  stipu- 
lated an  apology;  the  payment  of  an  indemnity  of  110,000  yen  to 
the  relatives  of  the  murdered  and  the  merchants  who  had  been 
plundered;  the  punishment  of  the  murderers  of  Captain  Iso- 
bayashi,  military  attache;  the  furnishing  of  sites  for  legation  and 
consulate,  materials  for  building  the  same,  and  20,000  yen  to  pay 
the  cost  of  construction;  the  building  of  barracks  for  Japanese 
troops  adjacent  to  the  Legation;  and  further  that  the  murderers 
of  Captain  Isobayashi  should  be  punished  within  twenty  days 
after  the  convention  was  signed. 


210  IN   KOREA   WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

The  events  of  1882  and  1884  had  emphasized  what  the 
entire  history  of  the  relations  of  Japan  and  Korea  had  made 
manifest — namely,  that  some  distinct  understanding  with 
China  must  be  reached  if  the  two  neighboring  countries  were 
ever  to  live  together  in  peace.  The  task  of  establishing 
such  an  understanding  was  assigned  to  Marquis  Ito,  and  in 
the  spring  of  1885  he  proceeded  to  China  as  Japan's  special 
Ambassador.  Li  Hung  Chang,  who  was  then  Viceroy  of 
Chi-li,  was  the  Ambassador  appointed  by  the  Peking  Gov- 
ernment. The  latter  appointment  was  the  more  significant 
because  Li  was  supposed  to  entertain  a  profound  distrust  and 
dislike  of  the  Japanese;  moreover,  Yuan  Shi  Kai,  whose 
subsequent  career  has  been  so  important  in  the  politics  of 
the  Far  East,  and  who  had  been  in  command  of  the  Chinese 
soldiers  at  the  time  of  their  slaughter  of  the  Japanese  in 
1884,  was  a  protege  of  Li's.  In  spite  of  the  inherent  diffi- 
culties, the  broad  statesmanship  and  frankness  of  the  Mar- 
quis overcame  them;  and  the  intercourse  of  these  two  men, 
whose  personality  and  policy  afterward  had  so  much  to  do 
with  the  history  of  their  respective  countries,  resulted  in  their 
becoming  friends.  The  Chinese  statesman  expressed  regret 
that  he  had  not  met  Ito  before,  since  he  had  now  for  the  first 
time  gained  a  correct  conception  of  Japan's  policy;  he  even 
went  so  far  as  to  ask  the  Marquis  to  mention  the  need  of 
governmental  reforms  to  the  Dowager  Empress  of  China,  who 
became  angry  at  him,  her  own  Viceroy,  when  he  ventured  to 
refer  to  the  matter  before  her. 

On  the  1 8th  of  April,  1885,  a  Convention  was  signed  which 
was  intended  to  prevent  in  the  future  all  recurrence  of  events 
similar  to  those  of  the  previous  December.  The  important 
point  of  this  Convention  is  that  both  sides  pledged  them- 
selves against  armed  interference  in  Korea  except  in  pressing 
emergencies  and  after  mutual  consultation.  This  agree- 
ment, while  it  saved  the  "face"  of  China— a  matter  so  im- 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  211 

peratively  important  from  the  Chinese  point  of  view — was  a 
virtual  abandonment  of  her  claim  of  suzerainty;  for  it  gave 
to  Japan,  which  made  no  such  claim,  equal  interest  in  the 
internal  affairs  of  Korea  and  equal  right  to  send  troops  into 
its  territory,  in  case  the  judgment  of  both  countries  recog- 
nized such  a  need.  The  agreement  also  promised  good  for 
Korea  herself,  since  it  made  the  use  of  Chinese  or  Japanese 
soldiers  in  control  of  Korean  affairs  more  unlikely  for  trifling 
reasons;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  safeguarded  her  against 
other  foreign  armed  intervention  as  the  result  of  her  domestic 
intrigues. 

The  story  of  what  followed  and  led  up  to  the  war  with 
Japan  is,  briefly,  as  follows:  The  stipulations  of  this  Con- 
vention were  observed  by  Japan  both  in  letter  and  in  spirit, 
and  by  China,  upon  the  surface  at  least.  For  a  few  years 
neither  Power  sent  troops  to  Korea;  and  China  ceased  to 
flaunt  the  claim  to  suzerainty  before  her  neighbor's  face. 
But  she  still  cherished  the  fiction  and  sought  to  maintain  by 
indirection,  and  by  means  peculiarly  Chinese,  what  she  had 
failed  to  uphold  in  the  open.  Thus,  in  1887,  as  stated  in 
Moore's  Digest  o]  International  Law:  "The  Chinese  Govern-- 
ment  sought  to  prevent  the  departure  of  a  Korean  envoy  to 
the  United  States  on  the  ground  of  the  dependent  relation  of 
Korea  toward  China.  The  American  Minister  at  Peking 
was  instructed  to  express  surprise  and  regret  at  this  action  on 
the  part  of  the  Chinese  Government.  The  envoy  finally  set 
out  on  his  journey,  but  when  he  arrived  in  the  United  States 
the  Chinese  Minister  at  Washington  wrote  the  Department 
of  State  to  the  effect  that  the  Korean  envoy  would,  on  his 
arrival  there,  report  to  the  Chinese  Legation,  and  would  be 
presented  through  it  to  the  Department  of  State;  after  which 
he  might  apply  for  an  opportunity  to  present  his  credentials 
to  the  President. 

"  The  Korean  envoy,  on  the  day  after  his  arrival  in  Wash- 


212  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

ington,  addressed  a  note  to  Mr.  Bayard,  as  Secretary  of  State, 
asking  for  an  interview  to  arrange  for  the  presentation  of  his 
credentials  to  the  President.  Such  an  arrangement  was  duly 
made,  and  the  envoy  was  presented  without  the  intervention 
of  the  Chinese  Minister.  'As  the  United  States/  said  Mr. 
Bayard,  '  have  no  privity  with  the  interrelations  of  China  and 
Korea,  we  shall  treat  both  as  separate  governments  custom- 
arily represented  here  by  their  respective  and  independent 
agents.' " 

So  unmistakable  a  declaration  as  this  from  a  friendly,  im- 
partial Power  would,  it  might  reasonably  be  thought,  have 
caused  China  to  abandon  her  shadowy  pretensions.  It  did 
not  have  that  effect,  however.  Her  agents  in  Korea  com- 
mitted no  overt  act  which  was  likely  to  provoke  remonstrance 
from  the  Treaty  Powers;  but  they  lost  no  opportunity  of 
preserving  in  the  Korean  mind  at  least  the  fiction  of  de- 
pendency upon  China.  Yuan  Shi  Kai,  for  example, 
''Claimed,  and  to  a  large  extent  obtained,  the  position  of 
Chinese  Resident  at  Seoul.  His  official  title  was  'Director 
General  Resident  in  Korea  of  Diplomatic  and  Consular  Rela- 
tions,' and  his  substantive  rank  in  his  own  country  was  that 
of  Intendant  of  Circuit,  a  rank  corresponding,  according  to 
the  Anglo-Chinese  Treaty,  to  that  of  a  Consul.  .  .  .  Resi- 
dent Yuan  was  permitted  to  proceed  to  the  Audience  Hall  in 
his  chair  and  to  be  seated  in  the  presence  of  the  King,  privi- 
leges not  accorded  to  the  representatives  of  the  other  Pow- 
ers." (Wilkinson's  The  Government  oj  Korea.)  The  privi- 
leges thus  claimed  by  this  representative  of  China  were  ob- 
tained in  the  course  of  several  years  after  the  conclusion  of 
the  Convention  of  1885.  They  were  largely  ceremonial  in 
character  and  none  of  the  representatives  of  the  Treaty 
Powers  ever  recognized  the  right  of  the  so-called  Resident  to 
interfere  in  any  manner  in  their  business  with  the  Korean 
Government.  Whatever  there  was  peculiar  in  his  relations 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  213 

to  that  Government  was  a  question  of  an  understanding, 
practically  secret,  and  never  formally  enunciated  or  recog- 
nized, between  the  Korean  Court  and  himself.  The  condi- 
tions then  prevailing  in  Korea  were  highly  conducive  to  .the 
existence  of  such  anomalies.  An  amiable  but  weak  King; 
a  corrupt  Court  and  Government,  with  two  powerful  factions 
struggling  for  supremacy  and  stopping  at  nothing  to  gain  it — 
these  were  ideal  conditions  for  the  exercise  of  Chinese  di- 
plomacy. It  accomplished  nothing  in  the  end,  however,  even 
in  the  hands  of  such  an  astute  and  able  man  as  Yuan  Shi  Kai. 
Japan,  of  course,  never  recognized  his  pretensions,  but,  biding 
her  time  and  always  dealing  with  Korea  as  an  independent 
state,  devoted  herself  to  the  promotion  of  the  rapidly  growing 
commercial  and  industrial  interests  of  her  people  in  the 
peninsula. 

Naturally  neither  the  Government  nor  the  people  of  Japan 
could  view  without  resentment  the  attempts  on  China's  part 
to  maintain  rights  she  had  already  practically  surrendered. 
But  this  feeling  did  not  assume  a  definite  form  until  the  as- 
sassination of  Kim  Ok  Kiun  at  Shanghai,  in  March,  1894, 
and  the  arrest  of  a  confederate  of  the  murderer  in  Japan,  who 
confessed  that  he  was  officially  commissioned  to  murder 
another  one  of  the  Korean  political  refugees.  These  events 
aroused  a  storm  of  indignation  in  Japan.  What  followed 
added  fuel  to  the  flames.  The  murderer  and  the  body  of  his 
victim  were  conveyed  on  board  a  Chinese  man-of-war  to 
Korea.  The  murderer  was  rewarded  and  the  severed  parts 
of  Kim's  body  were  publicly  exhibited  in  different  parts  of 
Seoul.  Rightly  or  wrongly  this  barbarous  act,  against  which 
the  foreign  representatives  at  the  instance  of  the  Japanese 
Minister  unofficially  protested,  was  attributed  to  the  Queen's 
party.  The  excitement  it  caused  had  not  subsided  when,  in 
May,  came  the  "Tong  Hak"  rebellion.  The  Tong  Haks 
were  religious  fanatics,  the  chief  article  of  whose  creed  was 


2i4  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

said  to  be  the  massacre  of  all  foreigners.  Seoul  was  rife  with 
rumors,  and  the  utmost  alarm  and  confusion  prevailed.  Ac- 
cording to  the  report  of  the  American  Minister,  the  rebellion 
was  practically  suppressed  on  the  3d  of  June  by  Korean 
troops;  and  on  the  8th  of  June  the  Government  officially  an- 
nounced that  it  was  at  an  end.  In  the  meantime,  however, 
the  Chinese  Government,  without  previous,  notice  to  Japan 
or  mutual  consultation,  as  stipulated  in  the  Convention  of 
1885,  sent  a  force  of  2,000  troops  to  Korea,  which  on  June 
loth  landed  at  A-San,  about  forty  miles  south  of  Chemulpo, 
ostensibly  to  suppress  the  rebellion.  The  American  Minister, 
Mr.  Sill,  in  his  report  on  the  subject  to  the  Department  of 
State,  says  that  "this  was  done  at  Korean  request,  dictated 
and  insisted  on  by  Yuan,  the  Chinese  Resident."  Learning 
of  the  purpose  to  send  troops,  the  Japanese  Government 
promptly  remonstrated  with  the  Government  at  Peking,  and 
in  reply  was  informed  (after  the  act)  that  the  troops  had  been 
sent  because  urgently  needed  to  suppress  disorders  in  "the 
vassal  state."  There  was  no  explanation  and  no  apology 
beyond  this  palpable  and  contemptuous  violation  of  the  terms 
of  the  Convention  of  1885.  There  was  but  one  possible  re- 
sponse. On  the  same  day  that  the  Chinese  troops  landed,  a 
force  of  Japanese  marines  was  sent  to  the  capital,  to  be  re- 
placed a  few  days  later  by  a  larger  body  of  soldiers.  The 
scene  of  the  struggle  was  then  transferred  to  Seoul.  The 
Korean  Government,  having  brought  «the  trouble  on  its  own 
head,  showed  its  usual  impotence.  It  begged  both  Japan 
and  China  to  leave,  and  sought  aid  from  the  foreign  repre- 
sentatives in  the  effort  to  persuade  them  to  do  so.  China 
was  quite  willing  to  accede  to  these  appeals.  Possibly  her 
agent  on  the  spot,  it  may  even  be  the  Government  at  Peking, 
was  startled  by  the  promptitude  with  which  Japan  had  ac- 
cepted the  challenge.  In  any  event,  China  had  nothing  to 
lose  and  much  to  gain  by  doing  as  Korea  asked.  She  could 


THE   PROBLEM:     HISTORICAL  215 

leave  the  scene  with  flying  banners,  having  shown  that  Korea 
was  in  fact  her  vassal;  that  the  Convention  was  waste  paper 
and  that  Japan  could  be  flouted  with  impunity.  Naturally 
this  programme  did  not  commend  itself  to  Japan.  Accord- 
ing to  her  view  of  the  situation  there  were  certain  vital  ques- 
tions to  be  settled  before  the  troops  were  withdrawn.  Fore- 
most among  these  was  the  decision  of  Korea's  actual  status; 
then,  subsidiary  to  this,  but  none  the  less  important,  the  adop- 
tion of  certain  reforms  which,  while  improving  the  public 
administration  and  promoting  the  common  weal,  would 
prevent  the  recurrence  of  disturbances  which  were  a  constant 
menace  to  the  welfare  of  Korea  and  her  neighbors.  Accord- 
ingly, the  Japanese  Minister  presented  a  memorial  on  the 
proposed  reforms  and  demanded  a  categorical  statement  as 
to  whether  Korea  was  a  vassal  of  China  or  not. 

Regarding  the  latter  demand  the  American  Minister  re- 
ports that  "This  caused  great  consternation,"  since  if  they 
(the  Korean  Government)  answered  in  the  negative  they 
would  offend  China,  while  an  affirmative  answer  would  bring 
down  the  wrath  of  Japan.  After  many  consultations  and 
several  reminders  to  be  prompt  from  the  Japanese,  an  answer 
was  given  in  this  sense:  " Korea,  being  an  independent  state, 
enjoys  the  same  sovereign  rights  as  does  Japan  (see  Treaty  of 
Kang-hwa,  1876),  and  that  'in  both  internal  administration 
and  foreign  intercourse  Korea  enjoys  complete  independence ' 
(see  letter  of  the  King  to  the  President  of  the  United  States). 
They  supposed  that  by  thus  quoting  the  treaties  which  China 
allowed  them  to  make  she  cannot  take  offence,  while  Japan 
should  be  content  with  such  an  answer." 

The  breaking  out  of  hostilities  between  China  and  Japan 
was,  of  course,  the  occasion  of  renewal  in  acute  form  of  inter- 
nal strife  between  the  conservative  and  the  progressive  forces 
in  Korea.  But  for  the  time  being  the  progressive  forces, 
backed  by  the  dominance  of  the  Japanese,  were  the  stronger. 


216  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS   ITO 

On  the  5th  of  August,  1894,  the  Korean  treaty  with  China 
was  denounced;  on  the  i5th  of  the  same  month  it  was 
formally  abrogated  by  the  Korean  Government;  and  on  the 
1 9th  notice  of  an  entirely  new  plan  of  Government  was 
officially  issued.  On  September  3d  Marquis  Saionji,  special 
Ambassador  from  the  Emperor  of  Japan,  had  an  audience 
with  the  King  and  presented  him  with  gifts,  in  honor  of  his 
accession  to  the  position  of  an  independent  sovereign.  Nu- 
merous reforms1  which  had  been  discussed  in  the  Korean 
Council  on  July  3ist  of  this  same  year  and  agreed  upon  as 
laws  to  be  submitted  to  His  Majesty  for  his  approval,  instead 
of  being  sincerely,  wisely,  and  perseveringly  enacted  and 
enforced,  became  the  causes  of  increased  defection,  intrigue, 
and  internal  dissensions. 

The  rebellion  (referred  to  above  as  the  "Tong  Hak"  re- 
bellion), which  had  been  reported  as  suppressed  the  previous 
June,  broke  out  in  a  still  more  dreadful  form  on  the  first  of 
October  (1894).  The  Korean  rebels  became  a  "  disorganized 
pillaging  mob."  Taxes  were  no  longer  paid;  Korean  officials 
were  robbed  and  mutilated  or  murdered;  small  parties  of  the 
Japanese  were  attacked  and  tortured  to  death  after  the  tra- 
ditional manner  of  the  nation.  Meantime  the  Japanese 
forces  were  quite  uniformly  victorious  both  by  land  and  by 
sea;  and  on  October  9th  the  last  of  the  Chinese  forces  were 
driven  across  the  Yalu  River.  A  solemn  "oath,  sworn  at  the 
royal  temple  by  His  Majesty  the  King  of  Korea,  while  he 
worshipped,  on  the  i2th  day  of  the  twelfth  moon  of  the  five 
hundred  and  third  year  of  the  foundation  of  Ta  Chosen" 
(January  7,  1895),  bound  him  to  "give  up  all  idea  of  subjec- 
tion to  China  and  to  labor  firmly  to  establish  the  independ- 
ence of  Korea" ;  "  to  decide  all  political  affairs  in  council  with 

1  The  list  of  these  reforms  is  given  in  the  volume  of  the  U.  S.  Foreign 
Relations,  containing  the  report  sent  to  the  United  States  by  Minister 
Sill,  September  24,  1894. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  217 

his  Cabinet";  "to  prevent  Her  Majesty  the  Queen,  his  con- 
cubines, and  all  the  royal  relations  from  interfering  in  affairs 
of  state,"  thus  securing  a  separation  between  their  affairs  and 
those  of  the  royal  household;  and  to  introduce  and  foster 
other  reforms  of  a  political  and  educational  character.  How 
poorly  His  Majesty  kept  his  solemn  oath,  the  subsequent  his- 
tory of  his  throne  and  of  his  nation  abundantly  shows. 

By  the  Chino- Japan  war  the  dominating  and  baleful  in- 
fluence of  China  was  for  all  time  removed,  and  to  Korea  was 
secured  the  opportunity  for  an  independent  and  progressive 
national  development  under  the  guidance,  and  by  the  assist- 
ance, of  Japan.  That  the  Government  of  Japan  honestly 
wished  for  this  good  to  come  to  Korea,  there  is  no  reasonable 
ground  of  doubt.  That  the  good  did  not  follow  is,  however, 
due  to  the  fault  of  both  nations.  As  regards  the  character 
and  conduct  of  the  average  political  reformer  there  is  a 
marked  similarity  between  the  Japanese  and  the  Koreans. 
Such  a  one  is  apt  to  be  over-confident,  and  even  self-con- 
ceited; to  have  only  a  scanty  acquaintance  with  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  politics  and  of  statesmanship;  to  be 
lacking  in  a  judicial  estimate  of  the  difficulties  to  be  over- 
come; to  make  use  (often  with  an  apparent  preference  for 
them)  of  offensive  rather  than  conciliatory  means;  and  to 
have  no  adequate  apprehension  of  the  value  of  time,  and  of 
the  necessity  of  securing  time,  in  order  to  effect  important 
changes  in  national  affairs.  Neither  has  he  learned  the  art 
of  compromise  in  consistency  with  the  maintenance  of  im- 
portant moral  principles.  That  Japan  has  not  hitherto 
failed  in  reforming  herself  as  conspicuously  as  Korea  is 
chiefly  due,  after  making  proper  allowances  for  the  different 
environments  of  the  two  nations,  to  the  great  difference  in 
the  character  of  the  two  Emperors  who  have  been  upon  their 
thrones  during  the  period  of  trial;  to  the  fact  that  Japan  has 
had  a  body  of  most  conspicuously  wise  leaders — something 


2i8  IN  KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS  ITO 

Korea  has  completely  lacked ;  and  to  the  difference  as  respects 
the  essential  spirit  of  loyalty  among  the  people  which  the 
feudal  system  developed  in  Japan,  but  which  has  never  been 
to  any  extent  developed  in  Korea. 

The  complete  inability  of  the  Korean  official  to  compre- 
hend, or  to  sympathize  with,  the  motives  which  led  the  repre- 
sentatives of  Japan — first,  Mr.  Otori  and  then  Count  Inouye 
— to  urge  the  adoption  of  administrative  reforms  may  be 
judged  by  the  fact  that  the  King's  father,  the  Tai  Won  Kun, 
handed  to  Inouye  on  his  arrival  as  Minister  at  Seoul  a  list  of 
sixty  persons  whom  he  wished  to  have  forthwith  executed  in 
order  to  secure  himself  in  control  of  affairs.  Squabbles  for 
power  between  the  party  of  the  Queen  and  the  party  of  the  Tai 
Won  Kun  therefore  continued  and  even  became  increasingly 
acute.  The  Korean  hot-head  progressives  were  pushing 
reforms  without  sufficient  regard  to  the  existing  conditions. 
But  for  a  time  the  presence  of  a  :eal  statesman  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  Japan  in  Korea  kept  the  evil  forces  in  check. 

Count  Inouye's  appointment  to  the  post  of  Minister  was 
an  eloquent  proof  of  the  profound  interest  which  the  Japanese 
Government  took  in  Korea,  and  of  its  earnest  desire  to  aid 
her  in  the  promotion  of  domestic  reform  and  progress.  On 
the  Count's  part,  personally,  the  acceptance  of  such  a  task, 
difficult  and  in  many  ways  distasteful,  was  an  exhibition  of 
self-sacrificing  patriotism,  to  which  the  present  action  of  his 
bosom  friend  and  associate,  Marquis  Ito,  affords  a  striking 
parallel.  While  striving  to  reconcile  the  warring  Korean 
factions,  he  devoted  himself  to  the  improvement  of  adminis- 
trative conditions  and  to  the  promotion  of  the  public  welfare. 
He  attained  a  measure  of  success  in  some  directions,  and 
would  undoubtedly  have  achieved  more  lasting  success  had 
it  been  possible  for  him  to  remain  longer  in  Korea.  His 
singleness  of  purpose  was  recognized  by  many  Koreans,  and 
the  sincerity  of  his  endeavors  to  benefit  Korea  was  acknowl- 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  219 

edged  by  foreign  observers.  But  the  task  was  too  heavy  for 
the  time  he  could  devote  to  it. 

Finally,  other  more  imperative  duties  called  Count  Inouye 
home,  and  he  was  succeeded  by  Viscount  Miura,  a  man  of  a 
different  stamp.  Then  followed  the  murder  of  the  Queen, 
with  all  its  unhappy  train  of  consequences.  Although  the 
crime  was  undoubtedly  concocted  by  the  Queen's  implacable 
enemy,  the  Tai  Won  Kun,  the  Japanese  Government  never 
sought  to  evade  the  share  of  responsibility  imposed  upon  it. 
The  tragedy  was  a  far  severer  blow  to  Japanese  interests  than 
to  those  of  Korea,  for  the  Queen  alive,  and  even  still  bitterly 
hostile  to  Japan,  could  never  have  worked  the  harm  that  the 
manner  of  her  taking-off  had  caused.  And,  indeed,  while 
apology  for  this  murder  from  the  moral  point  of  view  cannot 
be  justified,  in  spite  of  the  cruel  character  of  the  victim  and 
of  the  fact  that  there  was  then  visited  upon  her  only  the  same 
treatment  which  she  had  herself  given  to  scores  and  hundreds 
of  others,  when  considered  from  the  diplomatic  point  of  view 
the  act  was  even  more  foolish  and  reprehensible. 

The  following  account  from  Hershey1  gives  in  brief,  but 
with  sufficient  detail  for  our  purposes,  the  events  of  this 
period : — 

The  impolitic  attempts  at  hasty  and  radical  reform  in  Korea, 
which  followed  the  outbreak  of  the  Chino- Japanese  war,  were 
resisted  by  the  Court  party  at  Seoul,  headed  by  the  Queen  and  the 
Min  family  to  which  she  belonged.  Early  in  October,  1895,  the 
Queen  planned  a  coup  d'etat  with  a  view  to  disbanding  the  soldiers 
who  had  been,  trained  by  Japanese  officers,  and  of  replacing  the 
pro- Japanese  partisans  of  reform  in  the  Korean  Cabinet  by  her 
friends.  The  result  was  a  counter-plot  (in  which  the  King's 
father,  the  veteran  conspirator  Tai  Won  Kun,  was  a  prime  mover) 
to  seize  the  King  and  Queen  with  the  aim  of  obtaining  complete 
control  of  the  Korean  Government  in  interest  of  the  pro- Japanese 

1  International  Law  and  Diplomacy  of  the  Russe-Chincse  War,  p.  43  /. 


220  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

and  reform  party.  In  carrying  out  this  plot  (in  which  the  Japan- 
ese Minister  Miura  seems  to  have  been  an  accomplice)  the  Queen 
was  murdered  by  Japanese  and  Korean  ruffians. 

"This  disgusting  crime,"  Hershey  goes  on  to  say,  " al- 
though, it  assured  the  power  of  the  reform  Cabinet  for  the 
time  being,  reacted  upon  its  perpetrators,  and  was  followed, 
four  months  later,  by  another  equally  revolting,  by  means 
of  which  Russia  gained  control  of  the  Government  of  Korea. 
In  January,  1896,  there  took  place  a  slight  uprising  in 
Northern  Korea,  at  the  instigation,  it  was  said,  of  pro- 
Russian  leaders.  When  the  major  portion  of  the  army  had 
been  sent  out  of  the  capital  to  suppress  the  rebellion,  127 
Russian  marines  with  a  cannon  suddenly  landed  at  Chemulpo 
on  February  10,  and  immediately  entered  Seoul.  The  next 
day  the  King,  accompanied  by  the  Crown  Prince  and  some 
court  ladies,  fled  in  disguise  to  the  Russian  Legation,  where 
he  remained  until  February  20,  1897." 

Following  this  escapade  the  Prime  Minister,  Kim  Hong 
Chip,  a  man  widely  respected  and  in  no  way  connected  with 
the  murder  of  the  Queen,  and  Chung  Pyang  Ha,  equally  in- 
nocent of  the  same  crime,  were  deliberately  thrust  forth  from 
the  palace  gates  into  the  hands  of  the  waiting  mob,  which, 
in  true  Korean  fashion,  tore  them  limb  from  limb.  Another 
Minister  was  killed  a  few  days  later  in  the  country.  Thus 
ended  Japan's  attempt  to  enter  into  friendly  relations  with 
Korea  while  the  latter  nation  was  in  the  anomalous  condition 
of  an  independent  dependency  of  China.  Two  valuable  re- 
sults, however,  had  been  reached:  Korea  had  been  defini- 
tively and  finally  delivered  from  Chinese  control  and  dominat- 
ing influence;  and  her  own  inability  to  stand  alone  and  to 
inaugurate  the  needed  reforms  had  been,  it  would  seem, 
quite  sufficiently  demonstrated.  Japan,  on  the  other  hand, 
had  not  as  yet  shown  her  ability  wisely  to  inaugurate  and 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  221 

effectively  to  secure  these  reforms;  and  by  the  injudicious 
action  of  her  representative  in  Korea  she  had  thrown  the 
temporary  control  of  the  Korean  Court  into  the  selfish  and 
intriguing  hands  of  other  foreigners.  The  events  of  the  next 
decade,  therefore,  led  logically  and  irresistibly  forward  to  a 
yet  more  desperate  struggle,  at  a  yet  more  frightful  cost,  to 
solve  the  Korean  problem. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  PROBLEM:   HISTORICAL  (CONTINUED) 

THE  conclusion  of  the  centuries  of  intricate  and  unsatis- 
factory relations  between  these  two  countries  was,  to  quote 
the  words  of  another,  that  "  Japan  saw  herself  deposed  from 
the  position  in  Korea  to  which  her  victories  entitled  her,  by 
a  nation  which  appeared  to  be  both  an  upstart  and  a  usurper 
on  the  Sea  of  Japan."  For  three  and  a  quarter  centuries 
Russia  had  been  advancing  through  Asia  at  the  average  rate 
of  20,000  square  miles  annually;  and  now,  in  the  endeavor, 
in  itself  laudable,  to  secure  an  outlet  on  the  Pacific  for  her 
Asiatic  possessions,  she  began  extending  her  customary 
policy  over  Manchuria  and  the  Peninsula.  It  is  doubtful 
whether  the  Korean  King,  when  he  took  refuge  in  the  Russian 
Legation  at  Seoul,  was  really  alarmed  for  his  personal  safety; 
it  is  certain  that  he  hated  intensely  the  reform  measures 
which  had  been  forced  upon  him,  and  the  men  among  his 
own  subjects  who  were  committed  to  those  measures.  His 
life  was,  however,  never  in  any  real  danger  at  this  period. 
His  presence  and  his  position  at  the  Russian  Legation, 
during  his  entire  stay  there,  was  lacking  in  all  semblance  of 
royal  dignity.  He  was  himself  in  the  virtual  custody  of  a 
foreign  power.  The  different  Cabinet  Ministers  had  their 
places  assigned  in  the  dining-room  of  the  Legation,  behind 
screens; — "all  except  one  lucky  individual  who  secured 

1  Hershey,  International  Law  and  Diplomacy  of  the  Russo-Chinese 
War,  p.  44  /. 


THE   PROBLEM:     HISTORICAL  223 

quarters  for  his  exclusive  use  in  an  abandoned  out-house 
where  wood  and  coal  were  usually  stored." 

There  began  now  a  game  of  manoeuvring  and  intrigue  in 
which,  for  some  years  to  come,  the  Japanese  were  to  be  at  a 
large  disadvantage.  The  King,  who  has  always  shown  him- 
self irrevocably  committed  to  the  peculiar  methods  of  Korean 
politics,  within  two  weeks  of  the  day  on  which  he  had  taken 
refuge  in  the  Russian  Legation,  began  secretly  communicating 
with  the  Japanese  Minister.  The  Russian  Minister  at  that 
time,  who  has  been  pronounced  "probably  the  most  adroit 
representative  of  her  interests  whom  Russia  ever  had  in 
Korea,"  proclaimed  himself  an  unwilling  victim  of  the  King's 
fear,  which  he  regarded  as  hysterical,  but  could  not,  in  com- 
mon decency,  fail  to  respect.  The  Japanese  were  in  no 
position  to  resent  the  insult  or  to  foreguard  against  the 
menace  which  all  this  involved. 

Not  unnaturally,  the  Russian  representative  undertook 
promptly  to  avail  his  country  of  the  especially  favorable  op- 
portunity for  promoting  its  interests  in  the  Far  East  which 
was  offered  by  the  intimate  relations  of  protection  established 
over  the  Korean  Government.  For  it  should  never  be  lost 
out  of  mind  that  until  years  after  these  events,  whoever  had 
dominating  influence  with  the  Korean  monarch  controlled, 
in  largest  measure,  the  Korean  Government.  M.  Waeber, 
among  other  material  benefits,  secured  valuable  mining  and 
timber  concessions  for  his  countrymen;  it  was  also,  probably, 
due  to  his  influence  that  the  Korean  troops  which  had  been 
trained  by  the  Japanese,  were  disbanded.  There  then  fol- 
lowed a  radical  change  in  the  policy  of  Japan,  which  is  de- 
scribed as  follows  by  Hershey:1 

In  the  summer  of  1896  Japan  formally  departed  from  her  policy 
of  the  past  two  decades  of  upholding  the  independence  and  in- 

1  Ibid.,  p.  45 /.  See  also  the  account  of  Dr.  K.  Asakawa,  The 
Russo-Japanese  Canflictj  p.  263  ft. 


224          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

tegrity  of  Korea  by  her  own  efforts,  and  sought  the  co-operation 
of  Russia  toward  the  same  end.  On  May  i4th,  the  Russian  and 
Japanese.  Ministers  at  Seoul  concluded  a  memorandum  which 
fixed  the  number  and  disposition  of  Japanese  troops  in  Korea. 
On  June  9,  1896,  the  Yamagata-Lobanoff  protocol  was  signed 
at  St.  Petersburg.  It  was  thereby  agreed: 

(i)  That  the  Japanese  and  Russian  governments  should  unite  in 
advising  the  Korean  Government  to  suppress  all  unnecessary  expenses 
and  to  establish  an  equilibrium  between  expenditure  and  revenue.  If, 
as  a  result  of  reforms  which  should  be  considered  indispensable,  it  should 
become  necessary  to  have  recourse  to  foreign  debts,  the  two  govern- 
ments should  of  a  common  accord  render  their  support  to  Korea.  (2) 
The  Japanese  and  Russian  governments  should  try  to  abandon  to 
Korea,  in  so  far  as  the  financial  and  economic  situation  of  that  country 
should  permit,  the  creation  and  maintenance  of  an  armed  force  and  of 
a  police  organized  of  native  subjects,  in  proportion  sufficient  to  main- 
tain internal  order,  without  foreign  aid.  (3)  Russia  was  to  be  per- 
mitted to  establish  a  telegraph  line  from  Seoul  to  her  frontier;  the 
Japanese  Government  being  allowed  to  administer  those  lines  already 
in  its  possession.  (4)  In  case  the  principles  above  expounded  require 
a  more  precise  and  more  detailed  definition,  or  if  in  the  future  other 
points  should  arise  about  which  it  should  be  necessary  to  consult,  the 
representatives  of  the  two  governments  should  be  instructed  to  discuss 
them  amicably. 

The  Protocol  of  June,  1896,  was  no  sooner  signed  than 
Russia  proceeded  to  violate  its  terms.  In  the  same  month 
she  tried  to  gain  control  of  the  Korean  army  by  placing  it 
under  Russian  instruction  and  discipline;  in  the  same  year, 
she  urged  the  request  that  the  disposal  of  all  the  Korean 
taxes  and  customs  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  M.  Kir  Alexeieff. 
This  plan  was  partly  carried  through  the  following  year,  and 
Mr.  J.  McLeavy  Brown  was  dismissed  from  the  position  of 
Financial  Adviser  and  General  Director  of  Customs  for 
Korea,  although  he  was  soon  after  formally  restored  to  the 
latter  office,  the  control  of  which  he  had  never  been,  in  fact, 


THE  PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  225 

induced  to  surrender.  In  August  of  1897,  M.  de  Speyer 
succeeded  M.  Waeber  as  the  Representative  of  Russia  (Con- 
seiller  d'Etat)  in  Korea;  his  conduct  of  Russian  affairs,  which 
seems  to  have  been  quite  devoid  of  the  conciliatory  policy  of 
his  predecessor,  lost  for  his  country  many  of  the  advantages 
which  had  already  been  secured.  Besides  the  inducement 
from  this  fact,  the  recent  acquisition  of  Port  Arthur  and 
Ta-lien-wan  seemed  to  make  it  desirable  for  Russia,  for  the 
time  being  at  least,  to  conciliate  Japan.  And  Japan,  on  her 
part,  definitively  committed  herself  to  the  effort  to  conciliate 
Russia,  while  at  the  same  time  safeguarding  her  own  im- 
portant, and  indeed  essentially  vital,  interests  in  the  Penin- 
sula. Accordingly  there  was  concluded  between  the  two  na- 
tions the  Nishi-Rosen  Protocol  of  August  25,  1898. 
That  instrument  was  as  follows: 

ARTICLE  I. — The  Imperial  governments  of  Japan  and  Russia 
definitely  recognize  the  sovereignty  and  entire  independence  of 
Korea,  and  mutually  engage  to  abstain  from  all  direct  inter- 
ference in  the  affairs  of  that  country. 

ARTICLE  II. — Desiring  to  remove  every  possible  cause  of  mis- 
understanding in  the  future,  the  Imperial  goverrfments  of  Japan 
and  Russia  mutually  engage  not  to  take  any  measure  regarding 
the  nomination  of  military  instructors  and  financial  advisers  with- 
out having  previously  arrived  at  a  mutual  accord  on  the  subject. 

ARTICLE  III. — In  view  of  the  great  development  of  the  com- 
mercial and  industrial  enterprise  of  Japan  in  Korea,  as  also  the 
considerable  number  of  Japanese  subjects  residing  in  that  country, 
the  Russian  Imperial  Government  shall  not  impede  the  development 
of  commercial  and  industrial  relations  between  Japan  and  Korea. 

Five  days  later — namely,  on  August  3oth — Marquis  Ito, 
who  was- visiting  in  Korea,  and  had  been  cordially  received 
by  the  Emperor  and  invited  to  dine  with  him,  publicly  re- 
affirmed the  policy  for  which  His  Imperial  Majesty  of  Japan 
and  he  himself,  as  His  Majesty's  subject,  wished  to  be  respon- 


226          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

sible,  in  a  speech  delivered  at  a  dinner  given  at  the  Foreign 
Office.     On  that  occasion  the  Marquis  spoke  as  follows: 

YOUR  EXCELLENCIES  AND  GENTLEMEN: 

I  thank  you  sincerely  for  the  kind  words  in  which  the  Acting 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  has  just  addressed  me  on  your  behalf, 
but  at  the  same  time  I  am  constrained  to  say  that  I  do  not  de- 
serve the  high  compliments  which  he  chose  to  confer  upon  me. 
Allow  me  to  avail  myself  of  the  present  opportunity  to  say  a  few 
words  concerning  the  attitude  of  Japan  toward  this  country. 
You  doubtless  know  that  in  1873  a  group  of  Japanese  statesmen 
advocated  the  despatch  of  a  punitive  expedition  to  Korea,  a  pro- 
posal to  which  I  was  uncompromisingly  opposed  from  the  outset, 
because  I  deemed  such  a  war  not  only  uncalled  for,  but  contrary 
to  the  principles  of  humanity.  You  may  imagine  the  magnitude 
of  the  excitement  occasioned  by  this  question,  when  I  tell  you 
that  the  split  which  it  caused  in  the  ranks  of  the  Japanese  states- 
men led  to  a  tremendous  civil  war  a  few  years  afterward.  The 
point  to  which  I  wish  to  direct  your  attention  is  that  His  Imperial 
Japanese  Majesty's  Government  did  not  hesitate  to  reject  what 
it  considered  to  be  an  unjust  proposal  even  at  such  gigantic  risk. 

Japan's  policy  toward  Korea  has  since  been  unchanged;  in 
other  words,  her  object  has  always  been  to  assist  and  befriend 
this  country.  It  is  true  that  at  times  incidents  of  an  unpleasant 
nature  unfortunately  interfered  with  the  maintenance  of  un- 
suspecting cordiality  between  the  two  nations.  But  I  may 
conscientiously  assure  you  that  the  real  object  of  the  Japanese 
Government  has  always  been  to  render  assistance  to  Korea  in 
her  noble  endeavors  to  be  a  civilized  and  independent  state. 

I  am  sincerely  gratified  to  see  that  to-day  Korea  is  independent 
and  sovereign.  Henceforth  it  will  be  Japan's  wish  to  see  Korea's 
independence  further  strengthened  and  Consolidated;  no  other 
motive  shall  influence  Japan's  conduct  toward  this  country.  On 
this  point  you  need  not  entertain  the  slightest  doubt. 

Japan's  good  wishes  for  Korean  independence  are  all  the  more 
sincere  and  reliable  because  her  vital  interests  are  bound  up  with 
those  of  your  country.  A  danger  to  Korean  independence  will 


THE   PROBLEM;    HISTORICAL  227 

be  a  danger  to  Japan's  safety.  So  you  will  easily  recognize  that 
the  strongest  of  human  motives,  namely  self-interest,  combines 
with  neighborly  feelings  to  make  Japan  a  sincere  well-wisher  and 
friend  of  Korean  independence. 

Let  me  repeat  once  more  that  Korea  may  rest  assured  of  the 
absence  of  all  sinister  motives  on  Japan's  part.  Friendship  be- 
tween two  countries  in  the  circumstances  of  Japan  and  Korea 
ought  to  be  free  from  any  trace  of  suspicion  and  doubt  as  to  each 
other's  motives  and  intentions.  In  conclusion,  allow  me  to  express 
my  heartfulhope  that  you  may  long  remain  in  office  and  assiduously 
exert  yourselves  for  the  good  of  your  sovereign  and  country. 

With  the  coming  of  M.  Pavloff  to  Korea  as  its  Representa- 
tive, in  December,  1898,  the  diplomacy  of  Russia  in  this  part 
of  the  Orient  abandoned  the  traditional  method  of  patient, 
persistent  effort  at  advance,  together  with  more  or  less  per- 
fect assimilation  of  the  new  tribes  and  peoples  brought  under 
its  control,  and  adopted  the  more  brilliant  but  dangerous 
policy  of  a  swift  promotion  of  obviously  selfish  schemes  by 
a  mixture  of  threats  and  cajolery.  It  is  not  even  now  certain 
how  far  this  policy  was  supported  by,  or  even  known  to,  the 
home  government  of  Russia.  The  war  with  Japan,  to  which 
these  acts  led  steadily  and  irresistibly  forward,  seemed,  only 
in  its  actual  results,  to  reveal  at  all  fully  to  this  Government 
what  its  representatives  had  been  doing  in  the  Far  East. 

Among  the  various  attempts  of  M.  Pavloff  and  his  co- 
adjutors to  obtain  concessions  for  themselves  and  for  their 
country,  those  which  looked  toward  the  establishment  of  a 
Russian  naval  base  in  certain  localities  of  the  Korean  coast 
were  threatening  to  Japan.  "  But  Russia's  conduct  on  the 
Northern  frontier  of  Korea  along  the  Tumen  and  Yalu 
rivers  was" — to  quote  again  from  Hershey — "the  greatest 
source  of  anxiety  to  Japan." 

In  1896  Russia  had  obtained  valuable  mining  concessions  in 
two  districts  near  the  port  of  Kiong-hung  at  the  mouth  of  the 


22$  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

Tumen  River,  and  later  sought  to  extend  her  influence  in  that 
region.  More  important  and  dangerous,  however,  to  the  interests 
of  Japan  were  the  attempts  of  Russia  to  obtain  an  actual  foothold 
on  Korean  territory  at  Yong-am-po  on  the  Korean  side  of  the 
Yalu  River.  As  far  back  as  1896,  when  the  King  was  a  guest  of 
the  Russian  Legation,  a  Russian  merchant  had  obtained  timber 
concessions  on  the  Uining  Island  in  the  Sea  of  Japan  and  on  the 
Tumen  and  Yalu  rivers.  The  concession  along  the  Yalu  was  to 
be  forfeited  unless  work  was  begun  within  five  years  in  the  other 
two  regions.  This  condition  does  not  appear  to  have  been  com- 
plied with  when  the  Korean  Government  was  suddenly  notified 
on  April  13,  1903,  that  the  Russian  timber  syndicate  would  at 
once  begin  the  work  of  cutting  timber  on  the  Yalu.  Early  in  May 
sixty  Russian  soldiers  in  civilian  dress,  later  increased  by  several 
hundred  more,  were  reported  to  have  occupied  Yong-am-po,  a 
point  rather  remote  from  the  place  where  actual  cutting  was  in 
progress.  At  the  same  time  there  was  taking  place  a  mysterious 
mobilization  of  troops  from  Liaoyang  and  Port  Arthur  toward 
Feng-hwang-cheng  and  Antung  on  the  other  side  of  the  Yalu. 
Early  in  June  four  Russian  warships  paid  a  week's  visit  to  Che- 
mulpo. In  August  M.  Pavloff  appears  to  have  been  on  the  point 
of  obtaining  an  extension  of  the  Yong-am-po  lease,  but  this  was 
prevented  by  the  receipt  of  an  ultimatum  from  the  Japanese  Min- 
ister. Mr.  Hayashi  threatened  that  if  the  Korean  Government 
were  to  sign  such  a  lease,  Japan  would  regard  diplomatic  relations 
between  the  two  countries  as  suspended,  and  would  regard  herself 
as  free  to  act  in  her  own  interests. 

In  this  connection  it  should  be  said,  that  while  the  Korean 
Government  did  not  formally  renew  the  lease,  the  Emperor 
did  secretly  enter  into  an  arrangement  with  M.  Pavloff  con- 
cerning Yong-am-po,  practically  conceding  all  that  was 
asked  on  Russia's  behalf.  This  document  was  discovered 
after  the  war  began  and  hastily  cancelled  by  the  Emperor,  of 
his  own  accord,  upon  the  recommendation  of  the  Korean 
Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  229 

Meantime  another  conflict  of  interests  between  Russia  and 
Japan  was  developing  and  contributing  to  the  same  result — 
namely,  the  Russo-Japanese  war.  This  was  the  so-called 
"Manchurian  Question."  It  is  not  necessary  for  the 
purposes  of  our  narrative  to  trace  with  any  detail  the  origin 
and  different  stages  of  that  succession  of  successful  intrigues 
and  encroachments  upon  foreign  territory  which  had  been 
for  some  time  carried  on  with  the  Chinese  by  methods  similar 
to  those  now  being  employed  in  Korea.  Some  of  the  more 
salient  points  in  the  history  of  the  preceding  period  of  nearly 
a  half-century  need,  however,  to  be  called  to  mind.  In  1860, 
when  the  allied  forces  occupied  Peking,  the  Russian  Minister, 
General  Ignatieff,  by  a  brilliant  stroke  of  diplomacy,  secured 
for  his  country  the  cession  of  the  maritime  province .  of 
Manchuria,  with  600  miles  of  coast,  and  the  harbor  of 
Vladivostok,  down  to  the  mouth  of  the  Tumen.  For  this 
he  gave  nothing  in  return  beyond  the  pretence  that  it  was  in 
his  power  to  bring  pressure  upon  the  allies  and  thus  secure 
their  more  speedy  evacuation  of  the  Chinese  capital. 

Thirty  years  later,  after  the  new  province  had  been  devel- 
oped and  the  harbor  of  Vladivostok  converted  into  a  powerful 
fortress,  Russia  determined  upon  building  an  all-rail  route 
across  Siberia,  and  immediately  began  to  press  for  other 
concessions  in  Chinese  territory  that  in  1897  resulted  in  the 
association  which  constructed  what  is  now  known  as  the 
Manchurian  Railway.  This  enterprise  was  ostensibly  a 
joint  affair  of  the  two  countries;  but  it  has  been  fitly  described 
as  "only  a  convenient  bonnet"-  for  an  essentially  Russian 
undertaking.  Russian  engineers  now  came  in  large  numbers 
to  Manchuria;  Russian  Cossacks  accompanied  them  for  pur- 
poses of  their  protection.  Later  in  the  same  year  the  seizure 
by  Germany  of  Kiao-chau,  in  satisfaction  for  outrages  com- 
mitted upon  German  missionaries,  was  followed  by  Russia's 
request  to  the  Chinese  Government  for  permission  to  winter 


23o  IN   KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS  ITO 

her  fleet  at  Port  Arthur.  In  March  of  the  next  year  Japan 
had  the  added  mortification,  bitterness,  and  cause  for  alarm, 
of  seeing  Russia  demand  and  obtain  from  China  a  formal 
lease  of  the  same  commercial  and  strategic  points  of  the 
peninsula  of  Liao-tung  of  which  Russia,  by  combining  with 
Germany  and  France,  had  deprived  Japan  when  she  had 
won  them  by  conquest  in  war.  These  enterprises  in  Man- 
churia were  financed  by  the  Russo-Chinese  Bank,  an  institu- 
tion which  had  recently  been  founded  in  the  Far  East  as  a 
branch  of  the  Russian  Ministry  of  Finance.  So  important 
is  this  last-mentioned  fact  that  one  writer  places  upon  M. 
Pokotiloff,  Chief  of  the  Russo-Chinese  Bank  in  Berlin,  the 
responsibility  for  the  whole  Port  Arthur  episode,  and  de- 
clares it  was  he  who  dictated  the  policy  of  Russia  in  Man- 
churia after  the  Boxer  uprising.1 

The  occupation  o.  Port  Arthur  and  Ta-lien-wan  (renamed 
Dalny)  was  accompanied  by  assurances  from  the  Russian 
Government — chiefly  designed  to  quiet  Great  Britain  and 
Japan — that  it  had  "no  intention  of  infringing  the  rights  and 
privileges  guaranteed  by  existing  treaties  between  China  and 
foreign  countries;"  and  that  no  interference  with  Chinese 
sovereignty  was  contemplated.  To  the  objections  raised 
when  it  proceeded  to  fortify  Port  Arthur,  the  reply  was  made 
that  Russia  "must  have  a  safe  harbor  for  her  fleet,  which 
could  not  be  at  the  mercy  of  the  elements  at  Vladivostok  or 
dependent  upon  the  good-will  of  Japan."  Under  this  plea 
she  refused  to  change  the  status  of  Port  Arthur  as  a  closed 
and  principally  military  port.  The  effect  of  all  this  upon  the 
attitude  of  public  feeling  in  Japan  toward  Russia  can  easily 
be  imagined.  Even  when,  in  August,  1899,  the  port  of 
Dalny  was  declared  "  open  "  by  an  Imperial  ukase,  regulations 
with  respect  to  passports  and  claims  to  a  monopoly  of  mining 

1  So  Mr.  Whigham,  in  his  admirable  book  on  Manchuria  and  Korea. 
(London,  Isbiter  &  Company),  p.  123. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  231 

rights  continued  to  lessen  the  confidence  of  other  nations  in 
Russia's  good  faith  with  respect  to  the  occupation  of  Man- 
churia. It  is  now  sufficiently  well  established  that  during 
this  period  secret  agreements  between  Li  Hung  Chang  and 
the  Russian  Government  were  made  which  enlarged  the 
special  privileges  of  Russia  in  Manchuria.  Meantime,  also, 
her  military  hold  was  being  strengthened ;  so  that  by  Decem- 
ber, 1898,  she  had  20,000  men  at  her  two  ports,  while  Cossack 
guards — "  the  pennons  on  their  lances  showing  a  combination 
of  the  Russian  colors  and  the  Chinese  dragon" — were 
patrolling  the  railway  line  and  protecting  the  work  of  fortifica- 
tion at  Port  Arthur. 

During  these  years  the  Japanese  Government  was  watching 
with  quiet  but  painful  solicitude  the  movements  going  forward 
in  China.  When  Marquis  Ito  visited  Peking  and  the  Yang- 
tse  provinces  in  the  summer  of  1898,  he  was  received  with 
marked  attention,  especially  by  the  reform  party  among  the 
leading  Chinese  officials;  but  the  baleful  influence  of  the 
Dowager-Empress,  and  of  the  party  opposed  to  everything 
likely  to  curtail  their  power,  arrested  the  attempts  at  rap- 
prochement between  China  and  Japan.  It  was  the  so-called 
"Boxer  Movement,"  however,  which  gave  to  Russia  a  new 
claim  of  right  to  interfere  in  Chinese  affairs  and  to  establish 
more  firmly  than  ever  before  her  special  privileges  in  Man- 
churia. The  history  of  this  movement — of  the  way  in  which 
Russia  dealt  with  its  extension  into  Manchuria,  of  the  siege 
of  Peking  and  the  doings  of  the  allied  forces,  and  of  the  subse- 
quent behavior  of  the  Russians  with  regard  to  the  evacuation 
of  Manchuria — is  now  well  known,  or  easily  accessible,  by 
all  students  of  the  period. 

In  spite  of  repeated  promises  to  evacuate  the  points  seized* 
and  held  by  Russian  forces  when,  after  the  relief  of  the  Lega- 
tions, these  forces  were  withdrawn  from  Peking  and  Chi-li 
to  be  concentrated  in  Manchuria,  and  in  disregard  of  the 


232  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

interests  of  the  other  allies,  the  policy  of  keeping  all  that 
she  had  gained,  and  of  gaining  more  as  far  as  possible,  was 
steadily  pursued  by  Russia,,  On  November  n,  1900,  an 
agreement  was  made  between  the  Representative  of  Admiral 
Alexeieff  and  the  Tartar  General  at  Mukden,  the  most 
significant  point  of  which  was  the  promise  of  the  Chinese 
official  to  provide  the  Russian  troops  with  lodging  and  pro- 
visions, to  disarm  and  disband  all  Chinese  soldiers  and  hand 
over  all  arms  and  ammunition  to  the  Russians,  and  to  dis- 
mantle all  forts  and  defences  not  occupied  by  the  Russians. 

It  was  the  probable  effect  of  a  continued  occupation  of 
Manchuria  by  Russia  upon  their  business  interests  which  led 
Great  Britain  and  America  to  wish  that  the  repeated  Russian 
assurances  of  good  faith  toward  China  and  toward  all  foreign 
nations  should  manifest  themselves  in  works.  The  case 
could  not  be  wholly  the  same  with  Japan.  Her  interests  of 
trade  were,  indeed,  if  not  at  the  time  so  large,  more  close  and 
vital  than  those  of  any  other  nation  outside  of  China.  But 
her  other  interests  were  incomparable.  So  that  when  Russia 
failed  to  carry  out  her  engagements,  even  under  a  convention 
which  was  so  much  in  her  favor,  there  was  a  revival  of  sus- 
picion and  apprehension  on  the  part  of  the  Japanese  Govern- 
ment -and  the  Japanese  people.  Manchuria  and  Korea  both 
pointed  an  index  finger  of  warning  directed  toward  Russia. 

It  was  to  further  a  peaceful  adjustment  of  all  the  disturbed 
condition  of  the  interests  of  Russia  and  Japan  in  the  Far  East 
that  Marquis  Ito  went,  on  his  way  home  from  his  visit  to  the 
United  States,  at  the  end  of  1901,  on  an  unofficial  mission  to 
St.  Petersburg.  The  failure  of  the  overtures  which  he  bore 
discouraged  those  of  the  leading  Japanese  statesmen  who 
-were  hoping  for  some  reconciliation  which  might  take  the 
shape  of  allowing  Russian  ascendency  in  Manchuria  and 
Japanese  ascendency  in  Korea.  It  also  strengthened  the 
conviction  which  prevailed  among  the  younger  statesmen  that 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  233 

the  St.  Petersburg  Government  regarded  Manchuria  as  not 
only  its  fortress  in  the  Far  East,  but  also  as  its  path  to  the 
peninsula  lying  within  sight  of  Japan's  shores.  "  The 
Japanese  Government,"  says  Mr.  D.  W.  Stevens,  "at  last 
felt  that  the  vital  interests  of  Japan  might  be  irrevocably 
jeopardized  in  Korea  as  well  as  in  Manchuria,  if  it  continued 
to  remain  a  mere  passive  spectator  of  Russian  encroachments; 
and  in  August,  1903,  it  resolved  to  take  a  decisive  step.  In 
the  most  courteous  form  and  through  the  usual  diplomatic 
channels  Japan  intimated  at  St.  Petersburg  that  her  voice 
must  be  heard,  and  listened  to,  in  connection  with  Far 
Eastern  questions  in  which  her  interests  were  vitally  con- 
cerned." The  answer  of  Russia  was  the  appointment  of 
Admiral  Alexeieff  as  Viceroy  over  the  Czar's  possessions  in 
the  Far  East,  with  executive  and  administrative  powers  of  a 
semi-autocratic  character. 

But  let  us  return  to  Korea  and  inquire:  What  was  the 
policy  with  which  its  Emperor  and  his  Court  met  the  exceed- 
ingly critical  situation  into  which  the  country  was  being  forced 
by  the  conflict  going  on  between  Russia  and  Japan  both 
within,  and  just  outside  of,  its  borders?  The  answer  is  not 
dubious.  It  was  the  policy,  in  yet  more  aggravated  form, 
of  folly,  weakness,  intrigue,  and  corruption,  both  in  the 
administration  of  internal  affairs  and  also  in  the  management 
of  the  now  very  delicate  foreign  relations.  The  Emperor 
was — to  use  the  descriptive  phrase  of  another — enjoying  "an 
orgy  of  independence."  The  former  restraints  which  had  been 
imposed  upon  him  by  Chinese  domination,  by  the  personal 
influence  of  the  Tai  Won  Kun,  or  of  the  Queen,  by  his  fears  of 
the  reformers,  and  even  by  any  passive  emotional  impulses  of 
his  own,  leading  to  reformation,  were  now  all  removed.  While 
he  was  a  "guest"  at  the  Russian  Legation  there  was  certainly 
no  direct  influence  exerted  by  his  hosts,  to  assist,  advise,  or 
guide  him  into  better  ways.  It  was  not  the  policy  of  Russia  to 


234  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

effect — at  least  for  the  present  or  immediately  prospective 
occasion — any  moral  betterment  of  the  administration  of 
Korean  home  and  foreign  affairs.  Under  the  regency  of  his 
father,  the  Government  had  been  cruel,  despotic,  and  mur- 
derous toward  both  native  and  foreign  Christians.  But  the 
Tai  Won  Kun  had  some  regard  for  ancient  common  laws 
and  usages.  Under  him  the  people  were  reasonably  sure  of 
such  rights,  protection,  and  privileges  of  public  domain,  as 
their  ancestors  had  enjoyed.  The  public  granaries  were  kept 
full  against  the  time  of  famine.  The  timber  and  fire-wood  on 
the  hills  was  not  given  over  to  any  one  who  could  bribe  or 
cajole  the  corrupt  officials;  and  the  line  of  demarcation  be- 
tween royal  and  popular  rights  was  more  clearly  drawn  and 
better  understood.  But  now  all  this  was  changed  for  the 
worse.  The  King  declared  himself  the  sole  and  private 
owner — to  dispose  of  as  he  saw  fit — of  all  the  properties  which 
had  formerly  been  considered  as  belonging  to  the  state. 
Low-born  favorites  appropriated  or  laid  waste  the  public 
domain.  The  country's  resources  were  wasted;  the  people 
were  subjected  to  new  and  irregular  exactions,  levied  by  ir- 
regular people  for  illegal  purposes.  A  succession  of  the  most 
consummate  rascals  which  ever  afflicted  any  country  came 
into  virtual  control.  They  were  endowed  with  offices  pur- 
chased or  extorted  from  the  head  ruler.  Eunuchs  were  sent 
out  from  the  palace  on  "still  hunts,"  so  to  speak,  to  discover 
any  kind  of  property  which,  by  any  pretext  whatever,  could 
be  claimed;  and  to  seize  such  property  in  the  name  of  His 
Majesty,  or  of  the  King's  concubine,  Lady  Om,  or  of  some 
one  of  the  Imperial  Princes.  Laws  which  were  intended  to 
promote  the  ends  of  justice  were  twisted  from  their  purpose 
and  made  to  serve  the  ends  of  plunder.  Such  privileges  as 
that  of  coining  and  counterfeiting  the  currency  were  sold  to 
private  persons. 

Then  began  also  that  squandering  of  the  nation's  most 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  235 

valuable  resources  which,  under  the  name  of  "concessions" 
to  foreigners  who  generally  allied  themselves  for  this  end  with 
corrupt  Korean  officials,  has  continued  down,  to  the  present 
time;  and  the  adjustment  of  which  is  still  giving  the  Resident- 
General  and  his  judicial  advisers  some  of  their  most  serious 
problems.  To  quote  the  description  of  this  period  by  a  dis- 
tinguished foreigner,  long  in  the  Korean  service:  "Nothing 
in  this  country  is  safe  from  the  horde  which  surrounds  His 
Majesty  and  seemingly  has  his  confidence.  Public  office  is 
bought  and  sold  without  even  the  pretence  of  concealment. 
Officials  share  with  the  palace  the  plunder  which  they  extort 
from  the  people.  So  and  So  (naming  a  prominent  Korean 
Official)  is  said  to  owe  his  influence  there  largely  to  the  fact 
that  out  of  every  ten  thousand  yen  which  he  collects  he  sur- 
renders seven  thousand  to  the  Emperor,  retaining  only  three 
for  himself.  With  his  colleagues  it  is  usually  the  other  way, 
about."  According  to  the  same  authority,  many  kinds  of 
property  which  were  formerly  regarded  as  belonging  to  the 
state  were  now  being  appropriated  to  the  Emperor's  use,  or 
to  that  of  his  favorites,  without  any  pretext,  under  the  rule 
that  "might  makes  right."  Torturing,  strangling,  and  de- 
capitation, were  no  infrequent  methods  of  accomplishing  the 
imperial  will;  though  it  should  be  said  that  these  favors  were 
somewhat  impartially  distributed.  Sometimes  it  was  the 
secret  strangling  in  prison  of  such  patriots  as  An  Kyun-su  and 
Kwan  Yung-chin,  on  the  night  of  May  27,  1900 — than  which, 
it  has  truly  been  said,  "no  more  dastardly  crime  ever  stained 
the  annals  of  this  or  any  other  government " :  sometimes  it  was 
the  torturing  and  execution  of  such  unspeakable  rascals  as  the 
ex-court-favorites,  Kim  Yung-chun  (1901),  Yi  Yong-ik,  and 
Yi  Keun-tak  (1902).  In  a  word,  the  period  of  "  independence" 
to  which  the  Emperor  has  been  lately  imploring  his  own 
subjects  and  the  civilized  world  to  restore  him,  was  the  period 
in  which  he  took  what,  and  gave  away  what,  and  did  what  he 


236          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

chose,  under  the  basest  influences,  for  the  most  worthless  or 
mischievous  ends,  without  law  or  pretence  of  justice  or  goodness 
oj  heart,  to  the  lasting  disgrace  and  essential  ruin  of  the  nation. 

Such  is  a  summary  of  the  doings  during  the  years  preceding 
the  Russo-Japanese  war,  on  the  part  of  the  Korean  Emperor 
and  his  Court.  "Through  all  this  period," says  Mr. Hulbert,1 
"  Russian  influence  was  quietly  at  work  securing  its  hold  upon 
the  Korean  Court  and  upon  such  members  of  the  government 
as  it  could  win  over.  The  general  populace  was  always 
suspicious  of  her,  however,  and  always  preferred  the  rougher 
hand  of  Japan  to  the  soft  but  heavy  hand  of  Russia."  The 
threatening  nature  of  the  situation  created  by  these  Russian 
encroachments  was  as  well  understood  at  Washington  and 
London  as  at  Tokyo.  It  was  intimately  connected  with  the 
Manchurian  question  to  the  untangling  of  which  Mr.  Hay 
had  devoted  so  much  thought. 

But  Russia's  action  in  Manchuria,  threatening  as  it  was  to 
the  interests,  not  alone  of  Japan  but  also  of  other  foreign 
powers,  did  not  call  upon  the  Japanese  Government  for  armed 
interference.2  As  the  behavior  of  Japan  showed  during  the 
Boxer  troubles  in  China,  she  had  learned  caution  with  respect 
to  fighting  the  battles  of  civilized  Europe  and  America,  at  her 
own  expense  and  without  show  of  gratitude  from  others. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  the  most  threatening  feature  of 
the  situation  for  Japan  was  Russia's  activity  upon  the  Yalu, 
especially  at  Yong-am-po.  In  the  interests  of  peace  Mr.  Hay 
supplemented  his  efforts  to  maintain  the  principle  of  the  open 
door  and  equal  opportunity  in  Manchuria,  by  an  earnest 
endeavor  (which  had  Lord  Lansdowne's  cordial  support)  to 
fend  off  the  impending  quarrel  between  Japan  and  Russia. 
Since  all  the  Treaty  Powers  were  interested  in  the  matter  of 

1  The  Passing  of  Korea,  p.  167. 

2  See  on  this  and  allied  points,  the  lecture  delivered  by  Mr.  Rock- 
hill,  at  the  United  States  Naval  War  College,  Newport,  August  5,  1904. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  237 

treaty  ports  in  Korea,  the  method  that  most  readily  sug- 
gested itself  was  the  opening  of  Wiju  and  Yong-am-po, 
which  would  remove  any  question  of  the  latter  place  being 
used  as  a  military  or  naval  base.  The  request  was  reasonable 
from  every  point  of  view,  since  Wiju,  as  the  market  town,  and 
Yong-am-po,  as  the  port,  were  naturally  the  complement,  on 
the  Korean  side  of  the  Yalu,  of  Antung  then  recently  declared 
an  open  port  on  the  Manchurian.  Indeed,  other  considera- 
tions apart,  some  such  action  was  imperatively  necessary  from 
the  Korean  standpoint,  inasmuch  as  an  open  port  in  Chinese 
territory,  without  a  corresponding  port  of  entry  in  neighboring 
Korean  territory,  could  not  fail  to  be  prejudicial  to  the  inter- 
ests of  Korea.  Accordingly  the  American  and  British 
representatives  at  Seoul  were  instructed  to  urge  upon  the 
Korean  Government  the  necessity  of  opening  these  ports. 

This  was  done,  but  the  attempt  to  persuade  the  Emperor 
met  with  strenuous  opposition  on  M.  Pavloff's  part,  and 
finally  failed,  apparently  because  of  the  incapacity  of  His 
Majesty's  nearest  advisers  to  grasp  the  real  significance  of  the 
crisis  and  the  momentous  effect  which  the  decision  must  have 
upon  Korea's  fortunes.  The  struggle  was  a  fierce  one  while 
it  lasted  and,  among  other  minor  results,  led  to  the  resigna- 
tion of  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs.  The  gentleman  who 
succeeded  him,  as  Acting  Minister,  was  disposed  to  favor 
the  opening  of  the  ports,  in  spite  of  the  strong  opposition  of 
the  palace  coterie.  He  went  so  far  as  to  prepare  letters  to  the 
foreign  representatives  declaring  the  ports  open,  and  was 
actually  about  sending  them  out,  on  his  own  responsibility, 
when  he  was  stopped,  partly  by  a  peremptory  order  from  the 
palace,  and  partly  by  the  persuasion  of  his  friends  who 
represented  to  him  the  great  personal  danger  he  would  incur 
by  such  a  step. 

The  narrative  of  this  official  throws  a  curious  side-light 
upon  M.  Pavloff's  methods  and  shows  in  an  interesting  way 


238          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

his  persistence,  even  at  a  time  when  the  correspondence  be- 
tween Russia  and  Japan  preceding  the  war  had  reached  a 
critical  stage,  in  endeavoring  by  every  means  at  his  command 
to  carry  through  the  very  intrigue  which  formed  the  gravamen 
of  Japan's  strongest  reason  for  complaining.  It  is  easy,  in  the 
light  of  what  has  happened,  to  condemn  this  action;  but 
even  at  the  time  it  must  have  seemed  to  impartial  observers 
more  like  the  infatuation  of  a  desperate  gambler  than  the  well- 
considered  moves  of  a  shrewd  diplomatist.  It  was  all  done, 
too,  in  support  of  a  transparent  subterfuge,  namely:  that 
Russia  had  no  arrangement  with  Korea  which  gave  to  the 
proposed  use  of  Yong-am-po  any  other  character  than  that  of 
an  entirely  peaceful  occupation  for  legitimate  commercial 
purposes;  and  that  her  agents  had  done  absolutely  nothing 
in  the  way  of  preparing  the  place  for  military  occupation. 
When  he  was  urging  upon  the  Acting  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs  reasons  for  not  opening  Yong-am-po,  the  latter  en- 
quired: "Why  have  you  staked  off  such  a  large  extent  of 
territory,  and  why  are  you  building  a  fort?"  M.  Pavloff 
instantly  denied  in  emphatic  terms  that  anything  of  the  kind 
had  been  done.  "For  the  past  ten  days,"  quietly  replied  the 
Korean  official,  "I  have  had  two  men  whom  I  trust  thoroughly 
on  the  spot,  and  my  question  is  the  result  of  telegraphic 
reports  I  have  received  from  them."  The  interview  did  not 
continue,  but  within  forty-eight  hours  his  scouts  reported  to 
the  Acting  Minister  that  all  the  stakes  had  been  removed, 
There  had  not  been  time,  they  said,  thoroughly  to  remove  all 
traces  of  works  upon  the  fortifications,  but  that  as  much  of 
the  works  as  possible  had  been  levelled  and  the  whole  covered 
up  with  loose  earth,  tree-trunks  and  branches.  Such 
effrontery  seems  incredible;  but  these  are  facts,  and  others 
like  them  equally  typical  of  M.  Pavloff's  methods  could  be 
recited.  It  is  doubtful  whether  even  his  own  government 
knew  all  the  circumstances,  or  was  fully  aware,  until  it  was 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  239 

too  late,  what  he  had  done  and  was  continuing  to  do  to  arouse 
Japanese  suspicion  and  resentment. 

The  negotiations  having  in  view  the  peaceful  adjustment 
of  the  conflicting  interests  of  Russia  and  Japan  in  the  Far 
East,  which  were  begun  by  the  latter  country* in  the  summer 
of  1903,  were  further  continued.  Mr.  Kurino,  the  Japanese 
Minister  at  St.  Petersburg,  was  informed  by  Baron  Komura, 
who  was  then  Japanese  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  that  the 
recent  conduct  of  Russia  at  Peking,  in  Manchuria,  and  in 
Korea,  was  the  cause  of  grave  concern  to  the  Government  at 
Tokyo.  "The  unconditional  and  permanent  occupation  of 
Manchuria  by  Russia  would,"  said  Baron  Komura,  "create 
a  state  of  things  prejudicial  to  the  security  and  interests  of 
Japan.  The  principle  of  equal  opportunity  would  thereby 
be  annulled,  and  the  territorial  integrity  of  China  be  im- 
paired. There  is,  however,  a  still  more  serious  consideration 
for  the  Japanese  Government;  that  is  to  say,  if  Russia  was 
established  on  the  flank  of  Korea  it  would  be  a  constant 
menace  to  the  separate  existence  of  that  empire,  or  at  least 
would  make  Russia  the  dominant  power  in  Korea.  But 
Korea  is  an  important  outpost  in  Japan's  line  of  defence,  and 
Japan  consequently  considers  its  independence  absolutely 
essential  to  her  own  repose  and  safety.  Moreover,  the 
political  as  well  as  the  commercial  and  industrial  interests 
and  influence  which  Japan  possesses  in  Korea  are  paramount 
over  those  of  other  Powers.  These  interests  and  this  influ- 
ence Japan,  having  regard  to  her  own  security,  cannot  consent 
to  surrender  to,  or  share  with,  another  Power." 

In  view  of  these  reasons,  Mr.  Kurino  was  instructed  to 
present  the  following  note  to  Count  Lamsdorff,  the  Russian 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs:  "The  Japanese  Government 
desires  to  remove  from  the  relations  of  the  two  empires 
every  cause  of  future  misunderstanding,  and  believes  that 
the  Russian  Government  shares  the  same  desire.  The 


240  IN   KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

Japanese  Government  would  therefore  be  glad  to  enter  with 
the  Russian  Imperial  Government  upon  an  examination  of 
the  condition  of  affairs  in  the  regions  of  the  extreme  East, 
where  their  interests  meet,  with  a  view  of  denning  their 
respective  special  interests  in  those  regions.  If  this  sug- 
gestion fortunately  meets  with  the  approval,  in  principle,  of 
the  Russian  Government,  the  Japanese  Government  will 
be  prepared  to  present  to  the  Russian  Government  their 
views  as  to  the  nature  and  scope  of  the  proposed  under- 
standing." 

*  The  consent  of  Count  Lamsdorff  and  the  Czar  having  been 
obtained,  on  August  1 2th  articles  were  prepared  and  sub- 
mitted by  the  Japanese  Government  which  it  wished  to  have 
serve  as  a  basis  of  understanding  between  the  two  countries. 
The  essential  agreements  to  be  secured  by  these  articles 
were:  (i)  A  mutual  engagement  to  respect  the  independence 
and  territorial  integrity  of  the  Chinese  and  Korean  empires, 
and  to  maintain  the  "open  door"  in  these  countries;  and  (2) 
a  reciprocal  recognition  of  Japan's  preponderating  interests 
in  Korea  and  of  Russia's  special  interests  in  Manchuria. 
These  demands  were  not  altered  in  any  very  important  way 
by  Japan  during  all  the  subsequent  negotiations.  It  was 
their  persistent  rejection  by  Russia,  together  with  her  long 
delays  in  replying  while  she  was  meantime  making  obvious 
preparations  of  a  warlike  character,  which  precipitated  the 
tremendous  conflict  that  followed  some  months  later.  In 
her  first  reply  with  counter  proposals  which  was  made  nearly 
eight  weeks  later  through  Baron  Rosen,  the  Russian  Minister 
at  Tokyo,  Russia  not  only  reduced  Japan's  demands  regard- 
ing Korea,  but  even  proposed  new  restrictions  upon  her  in  that 
country.  But  what  was  equally  significant,  the  counter- 
proposals took  no  account  of  the  demand  for  an  agreement 
as  to  the  independence  and  territorial  integrity  of  the  Chinese 
empire,  or  as  to  the  policy  of  the  "open  door"  in  Man- 


THE   PROBLEM:     HISTORICAL  241 

churia  and  Korea.  On  the  contrary,  they  required  Japan 
expressly  to  recognize  Manchuria  as  "in  all  respects  outside 
her  sphere  of  interest."  Meantime  Russia  was  increasing 
her  commercial  and  military  activity  in  both  the  territorial 
spheres  where  the  question  of  interests  and  rights  was  under 
dispute. 

In  the  second  overture  of  October  3oth,  several  important 
concessions  were  made  by  Japan,  to  which  on  December  nth 
Russia  replied  with  a  repetition  of  the  former  counter- 
proposal— omitting,  however,  the  offensive  clause  regarding 
Manchuria  and  inserting  the  Japanese  proposal  relating  to 
the  connection  of  the  Korean  and  the  Chinese-Eastern  rail- 
ways. Ten  days  later  the  Japanese  Government  presented 
a  third  overture  in  which  Baron  Komura  tried  to  make  it 
clear  to  the  Russian  Government  that  Japan  desired  "to 
bring  within  the  purview  of  the  proposed  arrangement  all 
those  regions  in  the  Far  East  where  the  interests  of  the  two 
empires  meet."  But  when  the  reply  of  Russia  was  received 
in  Tokyo  on  January  6,  1904,  it  was  found  that  not  only  was 
there  no  mention  made  of  the  territorial  integrity  of  China 
in  Manchuria,  but  that  Russia  again  insisted  upon  Japan's 
regarding  the  "Manchurian  Question"  and  the  littoral  of 
Manchuria  as  quite  outside  her  sphere  of  interest.  Russia, 
indeed,  agreed  "not  to  impede  Japan  or  the  other  Powers  in 
the  enjoyment  of  the  rights  and  privileges  acquired  by  them 
under  existing  treaties  with  China,  exclusive  of  the  establish- 
ment of  settlements" ;  but  only  on  condition  that  Japan  would 
agree  not  to  use  any  part  of  the  territory  of  Korea  for  strateg- 
ical purposes,  and  also  to  the  establishment  of  a  neutral 
zone  in  Northern  itorea!  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  two 
governments  were  still  as  far  apart  as  at  the  beginning  in 
regard  to  the  most  vital  points  of  interest,  Japan  made 
another  and  fourth  attempt.  This  overture  was  presented 
to  Count  Lamsdorff  on  January  i3th  and,  in  spite  of  the  urgent 


242  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

request  for  an  early  reply,  this  did  not  come  until  February  7, 
the  day  following  the  severing  of  diplomatic  relations  between 
the  two  countries.  Negotiations  were  then  ended;  appeal  was 
now  made  to  the  "arbitrament  of  war,"  so-called. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  to  discuss  in  detail  the  question  of 
rights,  as  involved  in  these  negotiations,  whether  from  the 
political  or  the  moral  point  of  view,  or  to  consider  whether 
Japan's  method  of  initiating  hostilities  was  in  accordance 
with  law,  or  with  precedent  as  established,  if  such  it  can  be 
said  to  be,  by  the  usage  of  civilized  nations.  In  both  regards 
we  believe,  however,  that  the  claims  of  Japan  to  have  the 
right  upon  her  side  are  in  all  important  particulars  defensible. 
But  having  begun  the  war  with  Russia  it  can  be  seen  that  to 
secure  free  passage  for  her  troops  through  Korea,  and  to 
secure  Korea  in  the  rear  of  her  troops  as  they  passed  to  the 
front,  were  necessities  imposed  upon  Japan  in  a  yet  more  ab- 
solute and  indisputable  fashion  than  was  the  undertaking  of 
the  war  itself.  If  it  was  necessary  in  order  to  maintain  the 
integrity  and  free,  peaceful  development  of  Japan  that,  all 
other  means  having  failed,  she  should  resort  to  arms  in  the 
effort  to  check  the  dangerous  encroachments  of  Russia  in 
Manchuria  and  Korea,  it  was  immediately  and  essentially 
necessary  for  any  measure  of  success  in  this  last  resort,  that 
she  should  gain  and  hold  control  over  the  conduct  of  the 
Korean  Court  and  the  Korean  populace  during  the  war. 
What  were  the  nature  and  the  habitual  modes  of  behavior  of 
both  Court  and  people  has  already  been  made  clear; 'more 
information  on  these  subjects  will  be  afforded  in  subsequent 
chapters.  As  to  danger  of  treachery  we  may  note  in  pass- 
ing that,  while  friendship  was  being  protested  to  the  face  of 
the  Japanese  in  Korea,  a  boat  was  picked  up  in  the  Yellow 
Sea,  late  in  January,  1904 — that  is,  a  few  days  before  the 
outbreak  of  the  war — which  bore  a  Korean  messenger  with  a 
letter  to  Port  Arthur  asking  for  Russian  troops  to  be  sent  to 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  243 

Korea.  The  resort  to  valuable  concessions  as  a  bribe  for 
foreign  influence  became  at  once,  on  the  beginning  of  hostili- 
ties, more  active  even  than  before.  On  this  latter  point  we 
quote  the  words  of  Mr.  D.  W.  Stevens: 

The  outbreak  of  the  war  created  a  veritable  storm  of  terror  in 
the  ranks  of  Korean  officialdom.  Many  of  its  members  who  were 
known  as  Russian  sympathizers  fled  to  the  country;  a  few  took 
refuge  in  the  houses  of  foreign  friends.  Palace  circles  were  in 
particular  profoundly  agitated.  There  was  a  curious  manifesta- 
tion of  the  trend  of  the  Korean  official  mind  toward  the  belief 
that  political  support  can  be  bought.  Those  were  golden  days  for 
the  foreigner  who,  willing  to  trade  upon  Korean  ignorance  and 
credulity,  cared  to  let  it  be  understood,  either  openly  or  tacitly, 
that  his  government  would  appreciate  favors  shown  to  himself. 
One  foreign  minister  was  surprised  by  the  offer  of  a  mining  con- 
cession which  before  that  he  had  unsuccessfully  tried  to  obtain. 
Having  due  regard  for  his  own  and  his  country's  reputation  he 
naturally  declined.  Others,  private  individuals,  were  not  so 
scrupulous;  and  there  are  to-day  extant  exceptionally  favorable 
public  grants,  both  claimed  and  actually  enjoyed,  which  were  thus, 
as  it  has  been  put,  "  obtained  in  the  shadow  of  the  war." 

At  this  time  the  Emperor  was  dominated  by  the  influence 
of  a  courtier  named  Yi  Yong-ik,  whose  foreign  affiliations 
were  wholly  Russian.  The  Palace  coterie,  even  including 
this  man's  bitter  political  enemies,  was  almost  entirely  pro- 
Russian.  But  the  Emperor  was  also,  of  course,  much  afraid 
of  the  Japanese,  who  were  now  near  at  hand,  whereas  the 
Russians  and  their  Korean  coadjutors  had  either  fled  the 
country  or  gone  into  retirement.  For  the  time  being,  there- 
fore, Japan  had  control  of  the  Imperial  environment.  Mean- 
time, one  of  two  courses  only  seemed  open  to  the  Japanese 
themselves:  they  could  either  set  aside  the  Emperor  and  his 
untrustworthy  officials,  and  assume  complete  control  of 
Korean  affairs;  or  they  could  make  some  sort  of  arrange- 


244  IN   KOREA   WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

ment  which  would  secure  an  alliance  with  Korea.  If  faithful 
to  this  alliance,  the  Emperor  would  be  assured  of  his  personal 
safety  and  of  his  throne;  and  the  country  would  be  placed 
definitively  under  Japanese  protection.  The  leaders  in  Japan 
knew  perfectly  well  that  His  Korean  Majesty  was  anti- 
Japanese  and  characteristically  false  and  treacherous;  but 
they  hoped  by  moderation  to  win  him  over  to  at  least  a 
partial  and  temporary  fulfilment  of  the  obligations  under 
which  he  would  be  placed  by  the  adoption  of  the  more 
friendly  course. 

There  were  also  military  reasons  why  a  sort  of  protectorate 
and  alliance  seemed  necessary;  and  if  possible  in  a  way  to 
avoid  the  troubles  of  a  forcible  annexation.  For,  very  special 
and  momently  imminent  dangers  threatened  the  construction 
and  use  of  the  railway  by  which  the  Japanese  were  transport- 
ing their  troops  and  supplies  through  Korea  to  the  seat  of  the 
war.  In  several  instances  armed  attacks  were  made  upon 
the  workmen  and  the  track  was  torn  up.  In  another  con- 
nection it  will  be  shown  that  the  charge  of  extreme  cruelty 
and  wholesale  slaughter  made  by  Mr.  Hulbert 1  (and  illustrated 
by  a  picture  designed  to  excite  pathos),  because  the  Japanese 
military  authorities  executed  some  of  the  leaders  of  these 
dangerous  riots,  is  quite  unwarranted  by  the  facts.  The 
same  thing  may  be  said  of  the  charge  that  the  Po-an,  or 
"  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Peace  and  Safety,"  was  illegally 
and  wantonly  suppressed  by  the  Japanese  in  July  of  1904. 
The  simple  truth  is  that  this  society  bore  about  the  same 
relation  to  the  cause  of  "peace  and  safety"  which  has  been 
borne  during  the  past  two  years  by  the  several  associations 
for  intrigue  and  murder  which  have  masqueraded  under  titles 
suggestive  of  the  most  noble  schemes  for  promoting  the  in- 
terests of  patriotism,  education,  morals  and  religion.  It 
must  be  either  a  dull  or  a  prejudiced  mind,  indeed,  that  can 

1  The  Passing  of  Korea,  p.  210  /. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  ,  245 

take  in  the  atmosphere  of  Korean  politics  for  even  a  few 
months — not  to  say,  years — of  residence  in  the  land,  and 
not  understand  the  threatening  significance  of  these  associa- 
tions. On  the  other  hand,  the  question  of  propriety  in  dealing 
summarily  with  those  who  persist  in  tearing  up  the  tracks 
of  a  military  road  in  time  of  war  may  confidently  be  left  to 
those  who  are  experienced  in  such  matters. 

Indeed,  with  regard  to  the  entire  conduct  of  affairs  by  the 
Japanese  during  this  period,  we  may  ask  the  question,  and 
give  the  answer,  of  Mr.  Whigham:1  "What,  then,  is 
Japan  to  do?  Is  she  to  sit  down  and  watch  the  Russian 
flood  descending  on  her  fields  without  attempting  to  set  up  a 
barrier?  The  answer  is  very  simple.  Japan  must  take 
Korea  and  do  it  very  quickly,  too." 

It  was  such  a  situation  of  extreme  peril  and  emergency 
which  compelled  the  Japanese  Government  to  secure  formal 
recognition  in  an  agreement  with  the  Korean  Government — 
so  far  as  such  a  thing  as  government  then  existed  in  Korea — 
that  should  admit  of  no  misunderstanding.  This  necessity 
gave  rise  to  the  Conventions  of  February  23,  1904,  and  of 
August  22  of  the  same  year.  The  latter  of  these  conven- 
tions was  the  logical  sequence  and  supplement  of  the  former. 
By  the  first  of  the  Protocols 2  it  was  designed  to  secure  neces- 
sary reforms  in  the  administration  of  Korea  and,  besides,  such 
an  alliance  between  the  two  governments  that  Japan  should 
guard  the  Korean  Emperor  and  his  people  against  foreign 
.aggressions  in  the  future  and  secure  for  herself  the  furtherance 
of  her  military  operations  against  Russia.  Of  more  perma- 
nent importance  still  was  the  prevention  in  the  future  of  all 
such  experiences  as  she  had  passed  through  in  1894-1895,  and 
was  passing  through  at  the  present  time.  The  Convention 
of  February,  however,  was  no  sooner  concluded  than  His 

1  Manchuria  and  Korea,  p.   119. 

2  See  Appendix  A  for  its  text. 


246  IN  KOREA  WITH   MARQUIS   ITO 

Majesty  began  plotting  to  prevent  its  going  into  effect.  With 
the  conduct  of  military  matters  he  was  indeed  powerless  to 
interfere;  but  every  attempt  at  reform  met  with  either  his 
passive  resistance  or  open  opposition.  This  attitude  of  his 
made  necessary  the  additional  provisions  stipulated  in  the 
supplementary  Protocol  of  August  22,  igozj..1  In  this,  pro- 
vision was  made  for  the  appointment  by  the  Korean  Govern- 
ment of  a  Japanese  recommended  by  the  Japanese  Government 
as  "Financial  Adviser,"  and  of  some  foreigner,  also  to  be 
recommended  by  the  Japanese  Government,  as  "  Adviser  to 
the  Department  of  Foreign  Affairs."  The  appointees  to  these 
positions  were  Mr.  Megata  and  Mr.  D.  W.  Stevens. 

But  still  the  intrigue  and  treachery  of  His  Majesty  went  on. 
In  spite  of  the  excellent  service  of  Mr.  Megata  in  straightening 
out  the  confusion  of  the  Korean  finances,  and  in  utter  dis- 
regard of  Mr.  Stevens'  advices  and  endeavors  to  make  the 
new  Protocols  both  appear,  and  actually  to  be,  greatly  to  the 
advantage  of  the  Emperor  and  of  his  country,  the  imperial 
ways  remained  unchanged.  His  own  Foreign  Ministers  were 
either  disregarded  or  made  tools  of  intrigue.  Even  after  the 
Treaty  of  November,  1905,  His  Majesty  sent  secret  telegrams 
from  the  Palace  ordering  the  Foreign  Ministers  of  other 
Governments  to  pay  no  attention  to  the  directions  of  his  own 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  while  the  latter  was  arranging 
for  the  closing  of  the  Legations  according  to  the  terms  of  the 
Treaty.  During  the  entire  war  he  was  in  secret  communica- 
tion with  Japan's  enemies,  while  claiming  Japan's  protection 
under  the  Protocols  of  February  and  August,  1904.  This 
treacherous  correspondence  was  carried  on  through  emissaries 
at  Shanghai;  and  large  sums  of  money,  which  the  Japanese 
Financial  Adviser  had  somehow  to  provide,  were  wasted 
upon  these  futile  efforts  to  change  the  course  of  events. 
Indeed,  in  this  correspondence  and  in  the  distribution  of  this 

1  See  Appendix  B. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  247 

money,  it  is  probable  that  the  chief  agent  in  Shanghai  was 
the  same  person  as  the  chief  agent  of  Russia  herself. 

The  subsequent  history  of  the  relations  of  Japan  and 
Korea,  as  these  relations  resulted  through  the  events  of  July, 
1907,  in  establishing  a  protectorate  which  placed  all  important 
Korean  affairs,  both  internal  and  foreign,  under  the  control 
of  the  Japanese  Resident -General,  cannot  be  understood  or 
judged  without  keeping  the  necessity  and  the  significance 
of  these  Protocols  steadily  in  mind.  Of  the  Convention  of 
February,  1904,  Lawrence  significantly  says:1 

Japan  took  the  earliest  opportunity  of  regularizing  her  position 
by  a  Protocol  negotiated  with  the  native  Government,  and  com- 
municated with  Tokyo  to  her  Legations  abroad  on  February  27th. 
In  this,  the  last  of  the  long  series  of  diplomatic  agreements  relating 
to  the  subject,  the  fiction  of  Korean  independence  is  still  kept  up, 
while  the  fact  of  Japanese  control  is  further  accentuated.  By  the 
third  Article  Japan  "  guarantees  the  independence  and  territorial 
integrity  of  the  Korean  Empire  ";  and  by  the  second  she  covenants 
to  ensure  "  the  safety  and  repose  of  the  Imperial  Household  of 
Korea."  The  Korean  Government,  on  its  part,  covenants  to  adopt 
the  advice  of  Japan  in  regard  to  improvements  in  administration, 
and  to  give  full  facilities  for  the  promotion  of  any  measures  the 
Japanese  Government  may  undertake  to  protect  Korea  against 
foreign  aggressions  or  internal  disturbances.  It  also  agrees  that 
for  the  promotion  of  these  objects  Japan  may  occupy  strategic 
points  in  Korean  territory. 

The  effect  of  this  agreement  has  been  to  place  the  resources  of 
Korea  at  the  disposal  of  Japan  in  the  present  war.  The  victorious 
army  which  forced  the  passage  of  the  Yalu  so  brilliantly  on  May  ist 
was  landed  at  Korean  ports,  concentrated  on  Korean  soil,  and 
supplied  from  Korean  harbors.  In  the  political  sphere  Korea 
has  denounced,  as  having  been  made  under  compulsion,  all  her 
treaties  with  Russia  and  all  concessions  granted  to  Russian  sub- 
jects. On  the  other  hand,  Russia  has  declared  that  she  will 

1War  and  Neutrality  in  the  Far  East,  p.  216  /. 


248          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

regard  as  null  and  void  all  the  acts  of  the  Korean  Government 
while  under  Japanese  tutelage,  and  her  newspapers  loudly  pro- 
claim that,  if  our  (English)  neutrality  were  genuine,  we  should 
raise  objections  against  the  Protocol,  as  being  inconsistent  with 
the  Treaty  of  1902,  whereby  we,  in  conjunction  with  Japan,  mu- 
tually recognize  the  independence  of  Korea.  In  reality  there  is  no 
inconsistency,  because,  as  we  have  just  seen,  it  is  clear  from  the 
first  Article  of  the  Treaty  that  the  independence  is  not  an  ordinary 
independence,  but  a  diplomatic  variety  which  was  perfectly  con- 
sistent with  recurring  interventions  to  ward  off  foreign  aggression 
and  put  down  domestic  revolt.  In  other  words,  it  was  a  dependent 
independence,  or  no  independence  at  all,  and  such  it  remains 
under  the  agreement  of  February,  1904.  That  instrument  un- 
doubtedly establishes  a  Japanese  Protectorate  over  Korea,  and 
the  beauty  of  Protectorates  is  their  indefiniteness.  As  Professor 
Nye,  the  great  Belgian  jurist,  says  in  his  recently  published  work 
on  Le  Droit  International:  "Le  terme  'protectorat,'  designe  la 
situation  creee  par  le  traite  de  protection.  .  .  .  Le  protectorat  a 
plus  ou  moins  de  developpement ;  rien  n'est  fixe  dans  la  theorie; 
il  est  cependant  un  trait  caracteristique  commun  aux  Etats 
proteges  c'est  qu'ils  ne  sont  pas  entierement  independants  dans 
leurs  relations  avec  les  autres  Etats."  These  words  exactly  fit 
the  condition  of  Korea  under  its  recent  agreement  with  Japan. 
Indeed,  the  description  might  be  extended  to  its  internal  affairs 
also.  Susceptibilities  are  soothed,  and  possibly  diplomatic  diffi- 
culties are  turned,  by  calling  it  independent;  but  in  reality  it  is 
as  much  under  Japanese  protection  as  Egypt  is  under  ours;  all 
state-paper  description  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

The  new  Treaty  of  August  22,  1904,  shows  that  this  is 
fully  understood  at  Tokyo.  A  financial  adviser  and  a  diplo- 
matic adviser  are  to  be  appointed  by  the  Korean  Govern- 
ment on  the  recommendation  of  Japan,  and  nothing  im- 
portant is  to  be  done  in  their  departments  without  their 
advice.  No  treaties  with  Foreign  Powers  are  to  be  con- 
cluded, and  no  concessions  to  foreigners  granted,  without 
previous  consultation  with  the  Japanese  Government. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  249 

That  the  view  of  this  authority  as  to  the  significance  of  the 
Conventions  of  1904  is  not  the  view  of  any  individual  alone 
has  been  clearly  demonstrated  by  the  acceptance  of  its  con- 
clusions, in  a  practical  way,  trfough  the  official  action  of 
foreign  governments  since  the  date  of  the  conventions  them- 
selves. 

In  particular  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  has  expressed  an  opinion  touching  the  effect  in 
international  law  upon  the  status  of  Korea  of  the  February 
and  August  Protocols  which  is  substantially  identical  with 
that  of  Professor  Lawrence.  Before  there  was  any  occasion 
for  a  formal  expression  of  opinion  a  significant  indication  of 
the  views  of  the  Department  of  State  upon  the  subject  could  be 
found  in  the  Foreign  Relations  for  1904.  Over  the  Protocols 
as  published  therein  may  be  found  the  caption  "  Protectorate 
by  Japan  over  Korea."  (437  f.)  Later  on,  Secretary  Root 
had  occasion  expressly  to  state  this  opinion.  This  was  when, 
in  December,  1905,  Mr.  Min  Yung-chan,  whilom  Korean 
Minister  to  France,  came  to  the  United  States  for  the  purpose 
of  protesting  against  recognition  by  the  United  States  of  the 
Treaty  of  November  iyth  of  the  same  year.  In  a  letter  to 
Mr.  Min,  explaining  the  reasons  which  made  it  impossible 
for  the  American  Government  not  to  recognize  the  binding 
force  of  that  instrument,  the  Secretary  added  that  there  was 
another  and  a  conclusive  reason  against  interference  in  the 
matter.  This  reason,  he  said,  was  to  be  found  in  the  circum- 
stance that  Korea  had  previously  concluded  with  Japan  two 
agreements  which,  in  principle  and  in  practice,  established  a 
Japanese  Protectorate  in  Korea,  and  to  the  force  of  which  in 
that  particular  the  Treaty  of  November  17  added  nothing. 

To  this  view  of  the  virtual  significance  of  these  earlier 
Protocols  there  is  only  to  be  opposed  the  demonstrably  false 
assertions  of  the  now  ex-Emperor  and  the  opinions  and 
affirmations — quite  unwarranted  as  the  next  chapter  will 


25o          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

show — of  writers  like  Mr.  Hulbert,  Mr.  Story,  and  other 
so-called  "  foreign  friends  "  of  His  Majesty.  These  assertions 
and  opinions  are  certainly  not  made  any  more  credible  by 
the  willingness  of  their  authors  to  denounce  the  President 
and  Acting  Foreign  Minister  of  the  United  States  in  Korea, 
and,  by  implication,  all  the  other  heads  of  foreign  governments 
who  neither  share  their  opinion,  nor  approve  of  their  conduct 
in  support  of  the  opinion!1 

By  the  Treaty  of  Portsmouth  the  Russian  Government  not 
only  definitely  relinquished  all  the  political  interests  she  had 
previously  claimed  to  possess  in  Korea,  but  also  recognized 
in  all  important  particulars  the  rights  acquired  in  the  same 
country  by  Japan  through  the  Conventions  of  February  and 
August,  1904.  Article  Second  of  the  Treaty  stipulates:  "The 
Imperial  Russian  Government,  acknowledging  that  Japan 
possesses  in  Korea  paramount  political,  military  and  economi- 
cal interests,  engages  neither  to  obstruct  nor  interfere  with 
the  measures  of  guidance,  protection  and  control  which  the 
Imperial  Government  of  Japan  may  find  it  necessary  to  take 
in  Korea. " 

Thus  did  the  war  with  Russia,  which  was  fought  over  the 
relations  between  Japan  and  Korea  as  an  issue  of  supreme 
importance,  terminate  the  second  main  period  in  the  history 
of  these  relations.  The  Chino- Japan  war  removed  forever 
that  foreign  influence  which  had  continued  through  centuries, 
not  only  to  prevent  the  immediate  realization  of  a  true  national 
independence  on  the  part  of  Korea,  but  also  to  unfit  the 
Korean  Government  to  maintain  such  independence  when 
conferred  upon  it  as  the  gift  of  another  nation.  The  Russo- 
Japanese  war  terminated  the  attempt  of  a  more  powerful 
foreign  nation  to  supersede  the  controlling  influence  of 
Japan  in  Korea.  At  the  same  time  it  gave  a  convincing 
further  demonstration  of  Korea's  inherent  and  hopeless 

1  See  especially  Hulbert,  The  Passing  of  Korea,  p.  464  /. 


THE   PROBLEM:    HISTORICAL  251 

inability  to  control  herself,  under  any  existing  conditions  of 
her  government  or  of  her  system  of  civilization.  Thus  the 
provisions  for  a  Japanese  Protectorate,  which  shall  secure 
for  both  nations  the  largest  possible  measure  of  good,  offered 
to  the  Marquis  Ito  his  difficult  problem  as  Imperial  Com- 
missioner to  Korea  in  November,  1905, 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   COMPACT 

IT  will  need  no  argument  for  those  familiar  with  the  habit- 
ual ways  of  the  Korean  Government  in  dealing  with  foreign 
affairs  to  establish  the  necessity  that  Japan  should  make 
more  definite,  explicit,  and  comprehensive,  the  Protocols  of 
February  23  and  August  22,  1904.  Foreign  affairs  have 
always  been  with  the  Emperor  and  Court  of  Korea  a  par- 
ticularly favorable  but  mischievous  sphere  for  intrigue  and 
intermeddling.  The  Foreign  Office  has  never  had  any  real 
control  over  the  agents  of  the  government,  who  have  been  the 
tools  of  the  Emperor  in  their  dealings  with  foreign  Legations. 
The  Korean  Foreign  Minister  in  1905  was  not  an  efficient  and 
responsible  representative  of  either  the  intentions  or  the  trans- 
actions of  his  own  government;  instructions  were  frequently 
sent  direct  from  the  Palace  to  Ministers  in  other  countries; 
foreign  Legations  had,  each  one,  a  separate  cipher  to  be 
used  for  such  communications;  and  there  were  several 
instances  of  clandestine  communication  with  agents  abroad, 
even  during  the  Russo-Japanese  war.  To  guard,  therefore, 
against  the  repetition  of  occurrences  similar  to  those  which 
had  already  cost  her  so  dearly,  Japan's  interests  demanded 
that  her  control  over  the  management  of  Korea's  foreign 
affairs  should  be  undivided  and  unquestioned. 

It  was  not,  however,  in  the  interests  of  Japan  alone  that 
the  management  of  Korea's  foreign  affairs  was  to  pass  out 

of  her  own  hands.     It  was  distinctly,  as  events  are  fast  proving 

252 


THE   COMPACT  253 

beyond  a  reasonable  doubt,  for  the  advantage  of  Korea  her- 
self. In  any  valid  meaning  of  the  word,  Korea  had  never 
been  "independent"  of  foreign  influences,  dominating  over 
her  and  corrupting  the  officials  within  her  own  borders. 
For  centuries  these  influences  came  chiefly  from  China;  for 
a  decade,  chiefly  from  Russia  and  other  Western  nations. 
The  Treaty  of  1905  was  also,  just  as  distinctly — so,  we  be- 
lieve, the  events  will  ultimately  prove — for  the  advantage  of 
these  Western  nations,  and  of  the  entire  Far  East. 

It  is,  therefore,  highly  desirable,  not  only  as  vindicating 
the  honor  of  Marquis  Ito  and  of  the  Japanese  Government, 
but  also  as  establishing  the  Protectorate  of  Japan  over 
Korea  upon  foundations  of  veracity  and  justice,  that  the 
exact  and  full  truth  should  be  known  and  placed  on  record 
before  the  world,  concerning  the  Convention  of  November, 
1905.  This  is  the  more  desirable  because  of  the  gross  and 
persistent  misrepresentations  of  the  facts  which  have  been  re- 
peated over  and  over  again — chiefly  by  the  same  persons — 
down  to  the  time  of  the  appearance  of  the  so-called  Korean 
Commission  at  The  Hague  Conference  of  1907.*  His  Maj- 
esty the  Emperor  (now  ex-Emperor)  of  Korea  has,  indeed, 
publicly  proclaimed  his  intention  not  to  keep  a  treaty  "made 
under  duress"  and  through  fears  of  "personal  violence"; 

1  The  narrative  which  follows  may  be  trusted  to  correct  most  of 
these  misstatements.  But  among  them,  some  of  the  more  important 
may  here  be  categorically  contradicted.  Such  are,  for  example,  the 
statements  that  armed  force  was  used;  that  General  Hasegawa  half 
drew  his  sword  to  intimidate  Mr.  Han;  that  Hagiwara  seized  the 
latter  with  the  aid  of  gendarmes  and  police;  that  the  Minister  of  Agri- 
culture continued  to  hold  out;  that  he  and  Minister  Pak,  during  the 
conference,  withdrew  from  the  Japanese  Legation  and  betook  them- 
selves to  the  Palace,  denouncing  the  compact  (something  no  one  ac- 
quainted with  the  geographical  relations  of  the  two  places  would  be 
likely  to  assert  with  a  sincere  belief);  that  the  Emperor  ordered  the 
consenting  Ministers  to  be  assassinated;  that  Japanese  troops  pa- 
trolled the  streets  all  night,  etc.,  etc.  One  curiously  characteristic 
error  of  Mr.  Hulbert  is  involved  in  the  statement,  published  in  one  of 


254  IN   KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

he  has  also  made  it  appear  that  the  signatures  and  the  Im- 
perial seal  upon  the  document  were  fraudulently  obtained. 
Meantime,  he  has  sedulously  (and,  we  believe,  with  such 
sincerity  as  his  nature  admits)  cultivated  and  cherished  the 
friendship  of  the  Japanese  Resident- General  who  nego- 
tiated, and  who  has  administered  affairs  under,  the  Treaty. 
How  he  lost  his  crown,  at  the  hands  of  his  own  Ministry, 
for  his  last  violation  of  the  most  solemn  provisions  of  the 
same  treaty,  is  now  a  matter  of  universal  history. 

Marquis  Ito  arrived  at  Seoul,  as  the  Representative  of  the 
Japanese  Government,  to  conclude  a  new  Convention  with 
Korea,  during  the  first  week  of  November,  1905.  He  was 
the  bearer  of  a  letter  from  his  own  Emperor  to  the  Emperor 
of  Korea,  which  frankly  explained  the  object  of  his  mission. 
What  follows  is  the  substance  of  His  Japanese  Majesty's 
letter. 

"Japan,  in  self-defence  and  for  the  preservation  of  the 
peace  and  security  of  the  Far  East,  had  been  forced  to  go 
to  war  with  Russia;  but  now,  after  a  struggle  of  twenty 
months,  hostilities  were  ended.  During  their  continuance 
the  Emperor  of  Korea  and  his  people,  no  doubt,  shared  the 
anxiety  felt  by  the  Emperor  and  people  of  Japan.  In  the 
mind  of  His  Majesty,  the  Emperor  of  Japan,  the  most  ab- 

the  papers  of  the  United  States,  which  makes  his  commission  by  the 
Korean  Emperor  to  lodge  an  appeal  with  President  Roosevelt  the 
cause  of  hastening  the  Japanese  Government  in  their  iniquitous  coup 
d'etat.  The  truth  is  that  the  Japanese  Government  had  made  all  the 
preparations  for  Marquis  Ito's  departure,  and  the  plan  afterward 
carried  out  had  been  carefully  formulated,  weeks  before  it  was  known 
that  Mr.  Hulbert  was  going  to  the  United  States.  The  Marquis  was 
only  waiting  the  return  of  Baron  Komura  to  Japan  before  leaving  for 
Korea.  No  thought  whatever  was  at  any  time  given  to  Mr.  Hulbert. 
It  is,  in  general,  late  now  to  say  that  the  efforts  of  those  "friends  of 
Korea,"  who  have  taken  the  Korean  ex-Emperor's  money  while  holding 
out  to  him  the  hope  of  foreign  intervention,  have  done  him  and  his 
country,  rather  than  Japan,  an  injury  impossible  to  repair. 


THE   COMPACT  255 

sorbing  thought  and  purpose  now  was  to  safeguard  the 
future  peace  and  security  of  the  two  Empires,  and  to  aug- 
ment and  strengthen  the  friendly  relations  existing  between 
them.  Unfortunately,  however,  Korea  was  not  yet  in  a 
state  of  good  defence,  nor  was  the  basis  for  a  system  of 
effective  self-defence  yet  created.  Her  weakness  in  these 
regards  was  in  itself  a  menace  to  the  peace  of  the  Far  East 
as  well  as  to  her  own  security.  That  this  was  unhappily  the  ' ^ / 
case  was  a  matter  of  as  much  regret  to  His  Majesty  as  it  f 
could  be  to  the  Emperor  of  Korea;  and  for  this  reason  the 
safety  of  Korea  was  as  much  a  matter  of  anxiety  to  him  as 
was  that  of  his  own  country.  His  Majesty  had  already  com- 
manded his  Government  to  conclude  the  Protocols  of  Feb- 
ruary and  August,  1904,  for  the  defence  of  Korea.  Now, 
in  order  to  preserve  the  peace  which  had  been  secured,  and 
to  guard  against  future  dangers  arising  from  the  defenceless 
condition  of  Korea,  it  was  necessary  that  the  bonds  which 
united  the  two  countries  should  be  closer  and  stronger  than 
ever  before.  Having  this  end  in  view,  His  Majesty  had 
commanded  His  Government  to  study  the  question  and  to 
devise  means  of  attaining  this  desirable  result.  The  pres- 
ervation and  protection  of  the  dignity,  privileges,  and  tran- 
quillity of  the  Imperial  House  of  Korea  would,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  be  one  of  the  first  considerations  kept  in  view. 

"  His  Majesty  felt  sure  that  if  the  Emperor  of  Korea  would 
carefully  consider  the  general  situation  and  its  bearing  upon 
the  interests  and  welfare  of  his  country  and  people,  he  would 
decide  to  take  the  advice  now  earnestly  tendered  to  him."  ^ 

It  should  be  noticed  that  this  address  from  His  Imperial 
Majesty  of  Japan  to  the  Korean  Emperor — the  sincerity  of 
which  cannot  be  questioned — is  pervaded  with  the  same 
spirit  as  that  which  has  characterized  the  administration, 
hitherto,  of  the  Japanese  Residency-General. 

Marquis  Ito  informed  the  Korean  Emperor  that  he  would 


256          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

ask  for  another  audience  in  a  few  days.  His  Majesty  con- 
sented, adding  that  in  the  meantime  he  desired  carefully  to 
study  the  letter  from  the  Emperor  of  Japan.1 

On  the  1 5th  of  November,  Marquis  Ito  had  a  private 
audience  which  lasted  about  four  hours,  and  in  which  he 
frankly  explained  the  object  of  his  mission.  .  .  .  The 
Emperor  began  the  interview  by  complaining  of  certain  in- 
juries done  by  the  Japanese  civil  and  military  authorities 
during  the  war.  He  dwelt  at  length  upon  past  events, 
saying,  among  other  things,  that  he  had  not  wished  to  go 
to  the  Russian  Legation  in  1895,  but  had  been  over-per- 
suaded by  those  about  his  person. 

Marquis  Ito  replied  that  as  he  would  remain  in  Korea 
for  some  time,  there  would  be  ample  opportunity  for  a  full 
exchange  of  views  regarding  the  matters  to  which  His  Ma- 
jesty referred.  At  the  present  moment  he  felt  it  to  be  his 
imperative  duty  to  beg  His  Majesty  to  hear  the  particulars 
of  the  mission  with  which  he  had  been  charged  by  his  Im- 
perial Master.  From  1885  onward,  he  went  on  to  say,  Japan 
had  earnestly  endeavored  to  maintain  the  independence  of 
Korea.  Unfortunately,  Korea  herself  had  rendered  but 
little  aid  in  the  struggle  which  Japan  had  maintained  in  her 
behalf.  Nevertheless,  these  efforts  had  preserved  His 
Majesty's  Empire,  and,  although  there  might  have  been 
causes  of  complaint,  such  as  those  to  which  His  Majesty  had 
just  referred,  in  justice  to  Japan  it  should  not  be  forgotten 
that  in  the  midst  of  the  great  struggle  in  which  she  had  been 
engaged,  it  was  unhappily  not  possible  wholly  to  avoid  such 

1  In  order  to  understand  the  following  negotiations  and  all  similar 
transactions  conducted  in  characteristic  Korean  style,  it  should  be 
remembered  that  delay,  however  reasonable  it  may  seem  or  really  be, 
is  in  fact  utilized  for  purposes  not  of  reflection  and  judicious  planning 
for  future  emergencies,  but  the  rather  for  arranging  intrigues,  securing 
apparent  chances  of  escape  from  the  really  inevitable,  with  the  result  of 
an  increasing  unsettlement  of  the  Imperial  mind. 


THE  COMPACT  257 

occurrences.  If  His  Majesty  would  consider  all  the  circum- 
stances, he  would  undoubtedly  realize  that  in  the  midst  of 
the  absorbing  anxiety  of  that  momentous  contest  and  of  the 
heavy  burdens  it  imposed  upon  Japan,  whatever  fault  might 
attach  to  her  as  regarded  the  matters  of  which  His  Majesty 
had  spoken  was  at  least  excusable.  Korea,  on  the  other 
hand,  had  borne  but  a  small  portion  of  the  burden  created 
by  the  necessity  of  defending  and  maintaining  a  principle  in 
which  she  was  as  deeply  interested  as  Japan — namely,  the 
peace  and  security  of  the  Far  East.  Turning  to  the  future, 
however,  it  could  be  clearly  perceived  that  in  order  effectively 
to  ensure  the  future  peace  and  security  of  the  Far  East,  it 
was  imperatively  necessary  that  the  bonds  uniting  the  two 
countries  should  be  drawn  closer.  For  that  purpose,  and 
with  that  object  in  view,  His  Majesty  the  Emperor  of  Japan 
had  graciously  entrusted  him  with  the  task  of  explaining  the 
means  which,  after  mature  and  careful  deliberation,  it  had 
been  concluded  should  be  adopted. 

The  substance  of  the  plan  which  had  been  thus  formulated 
might  be  summed  up  as  follows:  .  .  .  The  Japanese  Gov- 
ernment, with  the  consent  of  the  Government  of  Korea,  to 
have  the  right  to  control  and  direct  the  foreign  affairs  of 
Korea,  while  the  internal  autonomy  of  the  Empire  would  be 
maintained;  and,  of  course,  His  Majesty's  Government, 
under  His  Majesty's  direction,  would  continue  as  at  they 
present  time. 

Explaining  the  objects  of  the  Agreement  thus  outlined, 
the  Marquis  pointed  out  that  it  would  effectively  safeguard 
the  security  and  prestige  of  the  Imperial  House  of  Korea, 
while  affording  the  surest  means  of  augmenting  the  happi- 
ness and  prosperity  of  the  people.  For  the  reasons  stated, 
and  for  these  alone,  the  Marquis  went  on  to  say,  he  strongly 
advised  the  Emperor  to  accept  this  plan;  and,  taking  into 
account  the  general  situation,  and  the  condition  of  Korea  in 


258  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

particular,  he  earnestly  hoped  that  His  Majesty  would  con- 
sent. The  Japanese  Minister  was  authorized  to  discuss  the 
details  with  His  Majesty's  Ministers. 

The  Emperor  in  reply  expressed  his  appreciation  of  the 
manifestation  of  sincere  good-will  on  the  part  of  the  Em- 
peror of  Japan,  and  his  thanks.  Although  he  would  not 
absolutely  reject  the  proposal,  it  was  his  earnest  desire  to 
retain  some  outward  form  of  control  over  the  external  affairs 
of  Korea.  As  to  the  actual  exercise  of  such  control  by  Japan, 
and  in  what  manner  it  should  be  exercised,  he  had  no  objec- 
tions to  urge. 

Marquis  Ito  enquired  what  was  meant  by  "outward 
form." 

The  Emperor  replied,  "the  right  to  maintain  Legations 
abroad." 

The  Marquis  then  stated  that,  in  accordance  with  diplo- 
matic rules  and  usage,  there  was  in  that  case  no  difference 
between  the  form  and  the  substance  of  control.  Therefore 
he  could  not  accept  the  suggestion.  If  Korea  were  to  con- 
tinue to  have  Legations  abroad,  she  would  in  fact  retain 
3fi  control  of  the  external  relations  of  the  Empire.  The  status 
quo  would  be  perpetuated;  there  would  be  constant  danger 
of  the  renewal  of  past  difficulties;  and  again  the  peace  of 
the  East  would  be  threatened.  It  was  absolutely  necessary 
that  Japan  should  control  and  direct  the  external  relations 
of  Korea.  This  decision  was  the  result  of  most  careful  in- 
/  vestigations  and  deliberations;  it  could jiQL_be_^hanged._ 
Marquis  Ito  further  stated  that  he  had  brought  a  memo- 
randum of  the  agreement  which  it  was  desired  to  conclude; 
and  this  he  then  handed  to  the  Emperor. 

The  Emperor,  having  read  it,  expressed  his  implicit  trust 
in  Marquis  Ito,  saying  that  he  placed  more  reliance  upon 
what  he  said  than  upon  the  representations  of  his  own 
subjects.  [It  may  seem  a  strange  comment  upon  the  work- 


THE  COMPACT 

ing  of  His  Majesty's  mind,  but  all  my  observations  and  ex- 
periences, while  in  Korea,  lead  me  to  believe  in  the  veracity 
of  this  declaration.  To  the  last,  the  Emperor  trusted  the 
word  of  the  Marquis  Ito.]  ...  If,  however,  he  accepted 
the  agreement  and  retained  no  outward  form  of  control  over 
Korean  foreign  affairs,  the  relations  of  Japan  and  Korea 
would  *be  like  those  of  Austria  and  Hungary;  or  Korea's 
condition  would  be  like  that  of  one  of  the  African  tribes. 

Marquis  Ito  begged  leave  to  dissent.  Austria  and  Hun- 
gary were  ruled  by  one  monarch;  whereas  in  this  case  His 
Majesty  would  still  be  Emperor  of  Korea,  and  would  con- 
tinue as  before  to  exercise  his  Imperial  prerogatives.  As  for 
the  presumed  resemblance  to  an  African  tribe,  that  could 
hardly  be  considered  in  point;  since  Korea  had  a  Govern- 
ment established  for  centuries  and  therefore  a  national 
organization  and  forms  of  administration  such  as  no  savage 
tribe  possessed. 

The  Emperor  expressed  appreciation  of  what  the  Marquis 
said,  but  repeated  that  he  did  not  care  for  the  substance, 
and  only  wished  to  retain  some  external  form  of  control  over 
Korea's  foreign  affairs.  He  therefore  hoped  that  the  Mar- 
quis would  inform  his  Emperor  and  the  Japanese  Govern- 
ment of  this  wish  and  would  induce  them  to  change f  the  |,  / 
plan  proposed;  this  wish  he  reiterated  a  number  of  times. 
[There  were  undoubtedly  two  reasons,  entirely  valid  from  his 
point  of  view,  for  the  endeavor  to  secure  this  change.  The 
first  was  the  very  natural  desire  to%"save  his  face";  and  the 
second  was  the — with  him — scarcely  less  natural  desire  to 
leave  room  for  intrigue  to  contest  the  scope  of  the  terms 
agreed  upon  while  claiming  to  be  faithful  to  their  substance.]  , 

The  Marquis  stated  that  he  could  not  comply  with  the 
request  of  His  Majesty.  The  draft  was  the  definitive  ex- 
pression of  the  views  of  the  Japanese  Government  after  most 
careful  consideration,  and  could  not  be  changed  as  His 


260  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Majesty  desired.  He  then  quoted  the  Article  in  the  Ports- 
II  mouth  Treaty  wherein  Russia  recognizes  the  paramount 
political,  commercial,  and  economic  interests  of  Japan  in 
,y  Korea.  There  was  only  one  alternative,  he  added:  either  to 
accept  or  to  refuse.  He  could  not  predict  what  the  result 
would  be  if  His  Majesty  refused,  but  he  feared  that  it  might 
be  less  acceptable  than  what  he  now  proposed.  If  His 
Majesty  refused,  he  must  clearly  understand  this. 

The  Emperor  replied  that  he  did  not  hesitate  because  he 
was  ignorant  of  this  fact,  but  because  he  could  not  himself 
decide  at  that  moment.  He  must  consult  his  Ministers  and 
ascertain  also  "the  intention  of  the  people  at  large." 

The  Marquis  replied  that  His  Majesty  was,  of  course,  quite 
right  in  desiring  to  consult  his  Ministers,  but  he  could 
not  understand  what  was  meant  by  consulting  "the  intention 
of  the  people."  Inasmuch  as  Korea  did  not  have  a  constitu- 
tional form  of  government,  and  consequently  no  Diet,  it 
seemed  rather  a  strange  proceeding  to  consult  "the  intention 
of  the  people."  If  such  action  should  lead  to  popular  ferment 
and  excitement  and  possibly  public  disturbances,  he  must 
respectfully  point  out  that  the  responsibility  would  rest  with 
His  Majesty. 

Finally,  after  some  further  discussion,  the  Emperor  re- 
quested Marquis  Ito  to  have  Minister  Hayashi  (who  held 
the  power  to  negotiate  the  proposed  agreement)  consult  with 
his  own  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs.  The  result  could  be 
submitted  to  the  Cabinet;  and  when  that  body  had  reached 
a  decision  His  Majesty's  approval  could  be  asked. 

Marquis  Ito  said  that  prompt  action  was  necessary,  and 
requested  His  Majesty  to  summon  the  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs  at  once,  and  to  instruct  him  to  negotiate  and  sign 
the  agreement.  The  Emperor  replied  that  he  would  give 
instructions  to  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  to  that  effect. 
Marquis  Ito  stated  that  he  would  remain  awaiting  the  con- 


THE  COMPACT  261 

elusion   of   that  agreement,  and  would  again   request  His 
Majesty  to  grant  him  an  audience. 

Before  this  first  audience  ended  the  Emperor  again  asked 
Marquis  Ito  to  persuade  His  Majesty  of  Japan  to  consent 
that  Korea  should  retain  some  outward  form  of  control  over 
her  foreign  affairs;  but  again  Marquis  Ito  refused.  This  / 
repeated  refusal  of  Japan's  Representative  to  concede  any-/ 
thing  whatever  as  an  abatement  of  his  country's  control  in 
the  future  over  Korea's  relations  to  foreign  countries  distinctly 
reveals  the  nature  of  the  only  treaty  that  could  then  possibly 
have  been  concluded  between  the  two  Powers.  On  the  fol- 
lowing day,  the  i6th  of  November,  Marquis  ItQ.had  a  con- 
ference with  all  of  the  Cabinet  Ministers,  except  the  Minister 
for  Foreign  Affairs,  who  on  the  same  day  began  negotiations 
with  Minister  Hayashi.  Marquis  Ito  explained  fully  to  the 
Korean  Ministers  the  object  of  his  mission  and  the  views  of 
his  Government. 

On  the  iyth  of  November,  at  n  A.  M.,  all  of  the  Korean 
Ministers  went  to  the  Japanese  Legation,  lunched  there,  and 
conferred  with  Mr.  Hayashi  until  3  o'clock,  when  they  ad- 
journed to  the  Palace  and  held  a  meeting  in  the  Emperor's 
presence.  Their  decision  was,  finally,  to  refuse  to  agree  to  \ 
the  Treaty  in  the  form  in  which  it  had  been  proposed. 
Marquis  Ito  was  taking  dinner  with  General  Hasegawa,  when, 
at  7.30,  he  received  a  message  from  Mr.  Hayashi  conveying 
this  intelligence  and  a  request  to  come  to  the  Palace.1  Ac- 
cordingly, at  8  o'clock,  he  went  to  the  Palace  in  company 
with  General  Hasegawa,  the  latter's  aide,  and  the  three  or 
four  mounted  gendarmes,  who  accompanied  Marquis  Ito 
wherever  he  went.  There  were  no  other  Japanese  guards  or 
soldiers  in  attendance,  and  none  in  the  immediate  vicinity  oj 

1  He  was  preparing  to  go  when  the  Minister  of  the  Household  called 
with  a  message  requesting  the  Marquis  to  postpone  the  conclusion  of 
the  Treaty  two  or  three  days. 


262  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

the  Palace.  The  gendarmes  who  accompanied  the  Marquis 
did  not  enter  the  Palace  precincts,  and  all  the  gates  and  en- 
trances were  guarded  as  usual  by  Korean  soldiers,  Korean 
gendarmes  and  Korean  policemen.  Precautions  had  indeed 
been  taken  to  preserve  order  in  the  city,  as  some  outburst  of 
mob  violence  was  possible.  The  necessity  of  this  precaution 
was  shown  later  in  the  night  when  an  attempt  was  made  to 
set  fire  to  the  house  of  Mr.  Yi  Wan-yong,  Minister  of  Educa- 
tion (now  Prime  Minister).  It  was  only  when  the  confer- 
ence was  ended  that,  at  the  express  request  of  the  Korean 
Ministers,  a  small  number  of  gendarmes  was  summoned 
to  accompany  them  to  their  homes.  [This  precaution  will 
not  seem  excessive,  or  threatening  of  violence  to  others,  in  the 
eyes  of  one  who,  like  myself,  has  spent  a  period  of  two  months 
in  Korea,  characterized  by  repeated  attempts  to  assassinate 
the  Ministers,  who  always  went  guarded  by  Korean  and 
Japanese  gendarmes.  See  pp.  66  ff.] 

Upon  arriving  at  the  Palace,  Marquis  Ito  was  informed 
by  Mr.  Hayashi  that,  although  His  Majesty  had  ordered 
the  Cabinet  to  come  to  an  agreement  which  would  establish 
a  cordial  entente  with  Japan,  and  although  the  majority  of 
the  Cabinet  Ministers  were  ready  to  obey  His  Majesty's 
commands,  Mr.  Han,  the  Prime  Minister,  persistently  re- 
fused to  obey.  Marquis  Ito  thereupon,  through  the  Minister 
of  the  Household,  requested  a  private  audience  with  His 
Majesty. 

It  should  be  explained  here  that  during  all  of  the  proceed- 
ings, which  took  place  in  the  rooms  on  the  lower  floor  of  the 
"Library,"  the  Emperor  was  in  his  rooms  in  the  upper 
story,  and  was  never  personally  approached  by  any  one  ex- 
cept, as  hereafter  stated,  by  his  own  Ministers.  It  may  also 
be  added,  in  explanation  of  the  time  of  the  conference,  that 
it  had  been  His  Majesty's  invariable  practice  for  years  to 
transact  important  public  business  at  night.  He  turned 


THE   COMPACT  263 

night  into  day  in  that  regard  and  the  Cabinet  Ministers  had 
customarily  been  obliged  to  attend  in  turn  at  the  Palace  and 
remain  there  all  night  long. 

To  the  request  for  a  private  audience  the  Emperor  re- 
plied that  although  he  would  be  pleased  to  grant  an  audience 
at  once,  he  was  very  tired  and  was  suffering  from  sore  throat — 
the  plea  of  indisposition  being  one  to  which  he  is  accustomed 
to  resort  for  avoiding  audiences.  Therefore  he  prefered  that 
Marquis  Ito  should  consult  with  his  Ministers  whom  he  would 
instruct  to  negotiate  and  conclude  an  agreement  establishing 
a  cordial  entente  between  Korea  and  Japan.  At  the  same 
time  that  the  Emperor  requested  the  Marquis  to  consult 
with  the  Cabinet  for  that  purpose,  the  Minister  of  the  House- 
hold informed  the  Cabinet  Ministers  that  His  Majesty  com- 
manded them  to  negotiate  with  Marquis  Ito. 

Marquis  Ito  then  turned  to  the  Prime  Minister,  and, 
repeating  what  Mr.  Hayashi  had  told  him,  enquired  whether 
the  statement  correctly  represented  his  attitude.  The 
Prime  Minister  replied  that  it  was  correct.  His  Majesty^ 
had  often  commanded  him  to  come  to  an  understanding 
with  the  Japanese  Minister,  but  he  had  refused.  Then  the 
other  Ministers  had  accused  him  of  disloyalty  in  disobeying 
His  Majesty's  commands.  He  himself  could  not  but  feel 
that  the  accusation  was  well  founded  and,  on  that  account, 
he  wished  immediately  to  resign  his  office  and  to  await  the 
Imperial  punishment  for  his  disobedience.  As  he  had  in- 
formed Marquis  Ito  the  day  before,  although  he  was  per- 
fectly well  aware  that  Korea  could  not  maintain  her  inde- 
pendence by  her  own  unaided  efforts,  he  still  wished  to  retain 
the  outward  semblance  of  control  over  the  Nation's  foreign 
relations. 

Thereupon  Marquis  Ito  said  that  the  last  thought  in  his 
mind  would  be  to  try  to  force  the  Prime  Minister  to  do  any 
thing  which  would  destroy  his  country.  The  Minister  had 


264  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

said,  however,  that  he  wished  to  resign  because  he  had  been 
disloyal  in  disobeying  the  Emperor's  commands.  It  did  not 
seem  to  him,  the  Marquis,  that  this  was  either  a  dignified,  or  a 
sensible  course  for  a  Minister  of  State  to  adopt.  The  manage- 
ment of  public  affairs  required  decision.  If  the  Prime 
Minister  could  not  come  to  some  understanding  with  Japan's 
representatives,  as  his  own  Majesty  the  Emperor  had  com- 
manded him  to  do,  he  was  seriously  jeopardizing  his  country's 
interests.  The  Marquis  could  not  believe  that  this  was 
genuine  loyalty.  There  was  only  one  alternative  before  the 
Prime  Minister,  either  to  obey  the  Imperial  order,  or,  care- 
fully considering  the  gravity  of  the  situation,  to  do  what  he 
could  to  change  the  Imperial  opinion.  He  then  asked 
the  Prime  Minister  to  request  the  other  Ministers,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  Emperor's  command,  conveyed  through  the 
Minister  of  the  Household,  to  give  their  views  regarding  the 
proposed  agreement.  This  the  Prime  Minister  proceeded 
to  do. 

The  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  Mr.  Pak  Chi-sun  (after- 
/  wards  Acting  Prime  Minister)  stated  that,  as  he  had  informed 
the  Japanese  Minister,  he  was  opposed  to  the  treaty  and  did  not 
wish  to  negotiate  it;  but  if  he  was  ordered  to  do  so,  he  would 
comply.  The  Marquis  asked  what  he  meant  by  "ordered"; 
did  he  mean  an  Imperial  order?  Mr.  Pak  assented. 

The  Minister  of  Finance,  Mr.  Min  Yong-ki,  said  that  he 
was  opposed  to  the  treaty.  (He  remained  in  office  for  a  year 
and  a  half  after  the  conclusion  of  the  treaty,  considering,  no 
doubt,  that  the  Imperial  command  absolved  him  from 
responsibility.) 

The  Minister  of  Education,  Mr.  Yi  Wan-yong  (now 
Prime  Minister),  replied  that  he  had  already  expressed  his 
opinion  fully  in  His  Majesty's  presence.  The  request  of 
Japan  was  the  logical  result  of  existing  conditions  in  the  East. 
The  diplomacy  of  Korea,  always  changing,  had  forced  Japan 


THE  COMPACT  265 

into  a  great  war  which  had  entailed  on  her  heavy  sacrifices, 
and  in  which,  finally,  she  had  been  victorious.  Korea  must 
accept  the  result  and  aid  in  maintaining  the  future  peace  of 
the  East  by  loyally  co-operating  with  Japan. 

The  Minister  of  Justice,  Mr.  Yi  Ha-yung  (who  had  been\ 
Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  during  the  war),  stated  that,  in  \ 
his  opinion,  the  Protocols  of  February  23  and  August  22,  I 
1904,  already  gave  Japan  practically  all  that  she  now  asked. 
Consequently  he  did  not  think  that  the  new  Treaty  was  neces- 
sary. 

Marquis  Ito  then  said  to  him  that  the  opinion  he  had 
expressed  at  the  conference  of  the  previous  day  was  some- 
what different,  and  that  he  had  appeared  at  that  time  to  be 
in  favor  of  the  Treaty.  The  Minister  assented,  but  added 
that  then,  as  now,  he  thought  that  the  Protocols  would 
have  been  amply  sufficient  if  Korea  herself  had  faithfully 
observed  the  obligations  they  imposed  upon  her. 

The  Minister  of  War,  Mr.  Yi  Kun-tak,  stated  that  in  His 
Majesty's  presence  he  had  supported  the  Minister  of  Educa- 
tion in  the  position  described  by  the  latter.  Finally,  how- 
ever, he  had  cast  his  vote  in  favor  of  the  Prime  Minister's 
proposal  that  they  should  insist  upon  a  Treaty  which  re- 
tained to  Korea  the  outward  form  of  control  over  her  foreign 
relations.  He  would  now  agree  to  the  proposed  treaty,  how- 
ever. 

The  Minister  of  Home  Affairs,  Mr.  Yi  Chi-yung,  said  that 
having  negotiated  and  signed  the  Protocol  of  February  23, 
1904,  he  had  naturally  associated  himself  with  the  Minister 
of  Education  in  His  Majesty's  presence,  and  he  now  did  the 
same. 

The  Minister  of  Agriculture,  Commerce  and  Industry,  Mr. 
Kwon  Chong-hiun,  said  that  he  had  seconded  the  proposal 
of  the  Minister  of  Education  and  was  of  course  m  favor  of  the 
Treaty.  He  desired,  however,  to  suggest  several  amendments. 


266  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

After  some  further  consultation,  Marquis  Ito  turned  to  the 
Prime  Minister,  and  said  that  there  were  but  two  of  the 
Ministers  opposed  to  the  Treaty.  The  recognized  method 
of  deciding  such  questions  was  by  a  majority  vote,  and,  as 
the  Prime  Minister  had  seen,  the  majority  of  the  Cabinet 
were  in  favor  of  negotiating  and  concluding  the  Treaty.  It 
was  the  duty  of  the  Prime  Minister  accordingly,  bearing  in 
mind  the  Imperial  command,  to  proceed  to  accomplish  this 
result  in  due  form.  Thereupon  the  Prime  Minister,  say- 
ing something  about  disloyalty,  burst  into  tears  and  went 
hastily  into  the  next  room.  After  a  few  moments  Marquis 
Ito  followed  him,  and  found  him  still  greatly  agitated.  The 
Marquis  spoke  to  him  gently,  and,  repeating  his  former  argu- 
ments, tried  to  persuade  him  that  it  was  his  duty  as  a  loyal 
servant  to  obey  the  Imperial  command  by  assisting  in  the 
negotiation  and  conclusion  of  the  Treaty.  Finding,  however, 
that  his  efforts  were  fruitless,  Marquis  Ito  returned  to  the 
other  room,  leaving  Mr.  Han  alone.1 

1  None  of  the  party  gathered  in  the  council  chamber  saw  Mr.  Han 
after  that.  It  seems  from  the  accounts  subsequently  given  by  Palace 
officials  that  a  little  later  Mr.  Han  went  upstairs  still  deeply  agitated. 
His  evident  purpose  was  to  gain  access  to  the  Emperor,  which,  as  he 
had  not  requested  an  audience,  was  a  flagrant  violation  of  etiquette 
from  the  Korean  point  of  view.  But  the  poor  man  in  his  confusion 
turned  the  wrong  way  and  stumbled  into  Lady  Om's  quarters.  Some 
of  the  officials  led  him  to  a  small  retiring  room,  where  he  spent  the 
night.  The  next  morning  it  was  officially  announced  that  he  had  been 
dismissed  from  office  in  disgrace  and  would  be  severely  punished. 
Marquis  Ito  immediately  begged  that  the  Emperor  would  pardon  him, 
and,  in  deference  to  this  request,  Mr.  Han  was  permitted  to  go  into 
retirement  with  no  other  punishment  than  the  loss  of  his  office.  The 
whole  proceeding  was- one  of  those  things  which  apparently  can  happen 
only  in  Korea  and  not  excite  any  one's  special  wonder.  No  one 
seemed  to  know  precisely  why  the  Minister  was  punished.  He  was 
amiable,  not  very  strong  mentally,  but  well-meaning  and  of  compara- 
tively good  repute;  he  had  done  his  best  to  carry  out  the  Emperor's 
wishes  as  he  understood  them,  and,  having  failed,  as  was  inevitable, 
his  grief  was  the  best  proof  possible  of  his  sincerity;  and  one  would 


THE   COMPACT  267 

After  Mr.  Han's  disappearance  from  the  scene,  and 
upon  the  Marquis'  return  to  the  room,  the  latter  addressed 
the  Minister  of  the  Household,  stating  that,  as  he  had  seen, 
the  Cabinet  Ministers,  with  two  exceptions,  had  expressed 
their  willingness  to  accept  the  Treaty  in  principle ;  and  of  the 
two  dissenting  Ministers  one,  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
had  said  that  he  would  sign  the  Treaty  if  he  received  the 
Imperial  command  to  do  so.  Turning  then  to  the  Ministers, 
he  enquired  whether  they  were  willing  to  proceed  as  com- 
manded by  His  Majesty,  with  the  consideration  of  the  Treaty, 
and  of  the  amendments,  which  several  of  their  number  had 
expressed  a  desire  to  present.  The  Ministers  replied  that 
they  were  ready  to  do  so,  but  wished  the  Minister  of  the 
Household  to  be  present.  Accordingly  the  deliberations  were 
conducted  in  the  presence  of  that  official. 

The  Treaty  was  then  considered  in  detail.  The  Minister 
of  Education  proposed  an  amendment,  stipulating  that  the 
functions  of  control  to  be  exercised  by  Japan  should  be  con- 
fined exclusively  to  administration  of  the  foreign  relations 
of  Korea.  Marquis  Ito  replied  that  he  could  not  accept 
this  amendment,  but  after  some  discussion  proposed  the 
insertion  of  the  word  "primarily"  in  the  Article.1 

think  it  might  have  excited  sufficient  pity  to  preclude  resentment. 
However,  it  should  be  added  that  the  'sincerity  manifest  in  Mr.  Han's 
grief  did  not  extend  to  his  memory  or  his  powers  of  narration.  At 
least  that  is  an  inference  which  one  may  draw  from  certain  published 
accounts  of  these  occurrences — Mr.  Han  having  seemingly  been  the 
fountain-head  of  the  information. 

1  The  Marquis'  reasons  for  refusing  hardly  need  explanation.  Japan 
had  already  secured  some  measure  of  control  over  the  internal  adminis- 
tration of  Korea  by  previous  arrangements.  The  acceptance  of  the 
proposed  amendment  would  have  been  virtually  an  abrogation  of  these 
arrangements,  notably  of  the  most  important  portion  of  the  Protocols  of 
February  23  and  August  22.  To  that,  of  course,  the  Marquis  could 
not  agree.  Besides  this,  the  control  of  Korea's  foreign  relations  neces- 
sarily required  some  measure  of  control  and  guidance  over  the  adminis- 
tration of  her  internal  affairs.  The  relations  between  external  and  inter- 


268  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

The  Minister  of  Justice  proposed  an  amendment  stipulat- 
ing that  Japan  would  guarantee  to  maintain  the  peace, 
security  and  prestige  of  the  Imperial  Household.  This 
Marquis  Ito  accepted  and  wrote  the  amendment  with  his 
own  hand. 

After  some  further  deliberation  the  treaty  in  its  amended 
form  was  agreed  to.  The  Minister  of  the  Household,  ac- 
companied by  Mr.  Yi  Chi-yung,  Minister  of  Home  Affairs, 
then  took  the  document  to  the  Emperor.  After  a  time  they 
returned,  saying  that  His  Majesty  was  satisfied  with  the  in- 
strument as  amended  and  gave  it  his  sanction.  He  in- 
structed them  to  say,  however,  that  he  desired  to  add  one 
more  amendment.  It  was  to  insert  in  the  preamble  a  stipu- 
lation to  the  effect  that  when  Korea  became  able  again  to 
exercise  the  functions  surrendered  to  Japan  by  the  Treaty, 
she  would  be  entitled  to  resume  the  control  of  her  foreign 
relations.  To  this  proposal  Marquis  Ito  assented,  and 
again  wrote  the  amendment  with  his  own  hand.  The  two 
Ministers  took  the  completed  instrument  to  His  Majesty, 
and  in  a  short  time  returned  saying  His  Majesty  was  "quite 
satisfied  and  approved  the  Treaty." 

The  copyists  then  began  preparing  the  copies  for  signa- 
ture, and  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  went  to  the  tele- 
phone and  ordered  the  clerk  in  charge  to  bring  the  seal  of 
the  Foreign  Office  to  the  Palace. 

The  Minister  of  the  Household,  who  had  again  repaired  to 
the  Imperial  presence,  returned  while  this  was  going  on 
with  the  following  message  from  the  Emperor  to  Marquis 

nal  affairs,  their  frequent  interdependence,  is  so  intimate,  that  it  would 
have  been  a  grave  mistake  to  assume  the  obligations  which  the  one 
imposed  without  the  power  to  guard  against  complications  which  might 
follow  from  maladministration  of  the  other.  As  the  case  stands,  the 
insertion  of  the  word  "primarily,"  while  soothing  Korean  suscepti- 
bilities, does  not  affect  the  control  of  the  Protectorate  in  any  material 
respect. 


THE   COMPACT  269 

Ito,  which  is  here  repeated  verbatim: — "Now  that  this  new 
Agreement  has  been  concluded  our  countries  should  mutually 
congratulate  each  other.  We  feel  tired,  as  we  are  not  well, 
and  shall  retire.  You,  who  have  reached  an  advanced  age 
and  have  remained  awake  until  this  late  hour,  must  also  be 
greatly  fatigued.  Please,  therefore,  return  to  your  home 
and  sleep  well." 

Marquis  Ito  returned  thanks  for  this  gracious  message, 
but  remained  until  the  Treaty  had  been  copied  and  duly 
signed  by  Mr.  Pak,  the  Korean  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs, 
and  by  Mr.  Hayashi,  the  Japanese  Minister.  He  then  re- 
turned to  his  hotel.  In  a  short  time  the  seal  of  the  Foreign 
Office  was  brought  to  the  Palace,  and  Mr.  Pak,  with  his 
own  hand,  affixed  it  to  the  four  copies  of  the  instrument 
which  had  been  made.1 

The  conclusion  of  the  Treaty  was  not  followed  by  any 
noticeably  great  public  excitement  in  Seoul.  Crowds  col- 
lected in  the  streets,  and  there  were  one  or  two  trifling  brawls, 
but  nothing  of  great  consequence.  The  policing  of  the  streets 

1  The  following  facts  with  regard  to  the  possession  of  the  Imperial 
seal  of  Korea  and  its  affixing  to  this  important  document,  are  given  on 
the  authority  of  Mr.  D.  W.  Stevens.  They  are  a  complete  refutation 
of  the  charges  which  have  been  made  regarding  this  part  of  the  entire 
transaction.  It  was  the  unavoidable  delay  in  bringing  the  seal  to  the 
Palace  which  gave  rise  to  these  extraordinary  stories.  "What  actually 
happened,"  says  Mr.  Stevens,  "was  this.  While  the  treaty  was  being 
copied,  Mr.  Pak  went  to  the  telephone  and  directed  the  clerk  in  charge 
of  the  seal  at  the  Foreign  Office  to  bring  it  to  the  Palace.  After  some 
delay  he  went  again  to  the  telephone  and  repeated  the  order.  At  the 
time  the  only  two  persons  in  the  office  were  the  clerk  in  charge  of  the 
seal  and  Mr.  Numano,  my  Japanese  assistant.  Both  were  just  then 
reading  in  the  room  where  the  clerk  slept  and  where  the  seal  was  kept. 
The  telephone  bell  rang,  and  the  clerk  who  answered  it  informed  Mr. 
Numano  that  Mr.  Pak  had  ordered  the  seal  to  be  brought  to  the  Palace. 
He  was  putting  on  his  street  clothing  preparatory  to  obeying  the  order 
when  the  Chief  of  the  Diplomatic  Bureau  of  the  Foreign  Office  came 
into  the  room  and  asked  the  clerk  where  he  was  going.  The  clerk  in- 


270  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

was  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the  Korean  gendarmes  and  the 
mixed  force  of  Korean  and  Japanese  police  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Mr.  Maruyama,  Police  Adviser  to  the  Korean  Gov- 
ernment. Nor,  in  order  to  preserve  the  public  peace,  was 
there  at  any  time  necessary  any  exhibition  of  a  large  force, 
either  of  police  or  of  gendarmes  in  any  one  locality.  They 
went  about  singly  or  in  twos  or  threes,  and  the  crowds  were, 
as  a  rule,  orderly. 

The  Convention  thus  concluded  on  November  17, 1905,  with 
the  object  of  strengthening  the  principle  of  solidarity  which 
unites  the  two  Empires,  provides  that  the  complete  control 
and  direction  of  Korean  affairs  shall  hereafter  rest  with  the 
Japanese  Government,  and  that  a  Resident- General  shall 
reside  in  Seoul,  "  primarily  for  the  purpose  of  taking  charge 
of  and  directing  matters  relating  to  diplomatic  affairs."  It 
also  provides  for  the  appointment  of  Residents,  subordinate 
to  the  Resident- General,  who  shall  occupy  the  open  ports 
and  such  other  places  in  Korea  as  the  Japanese  Government 
may  deem  necessary.  Article  IV  stipulates  that  all  treaties 
and  agreements  subsisting  between  Japan  and  Korea,  not 

formed  him,  whereupon  he  went  to  the  telephone  and  called  up  Mr. 
Pak.  He  implored  the  latter  not  to  agree  to  the  Treaty  and,  finally, 
receiving  Mr.  Pak's  peremptory  order  to  cease  interfering,  threw  him- 
self down  upon  the  clerk's  bed  in  great  grief.  After  this,  there  was  no 
further  interruption  from  any  quarter,  and  the  seal  was  taken  quietly 
to  the  Palace." 

It  throws  light  upon  the  control  and  use  of  this  seal  to  observe  that, 
when  in  the  summer  of  1907  he  was  committed  to  the  responsibility  for 
the  Commission  to  The  Hague  Conference  by  the  fact  that  the  com- 
missioners were  ready  to  prove  their  Imperial  authorization  by  showing 
the  Imperial  seal,  His  Majesty  did  not  admit  this  as  evidence  in  proof 
of  their  claim.  Nevertheless,  there  is  no  doubt  that  this  use  of  his  seal 
was  also  with  his  knowledge  and  permission.  And,  now,  in  connection 
with  the  various  details  inaugurated  under  the  new  Treaty  which  fol- 
lowed this  violation  of  the  Treaty  of  November,  1905,  we  are  told  that 
henceforth  the  Imperial  seal  will  be  kept  in  a  safe  especially  prepared 
for  it,  and  carefully  protected  from  intrusion. 


THE  COMPACT  271 

inconsistent  with  the  provisions  of  the  Convention  itself,  shall 
continue  in  force.  Furthermore,  Japan  engages  to  maintain 
the  welfare  and  dignity  of  the  Imperial  House  of  Korea. 

This  is  the  substance  of  the  Convention  of  1905.  Its  effect 
was  to  substitute  Japan  for  Korea  in  all  official  relations  with 
foreign  Powers,  past  as  well  as  future.  In  other  words, 
foreign  nations  must  hereafter  deal  directly  and  exclusively 
with  Japan  in  everything  affecting  their  diplomatic  relations 
with  Korea.  Japan,  on  her  part,  is  equally  bound  to  re- 
spect and  maintain  all  treaty  rights  and  all  treaty  engage- 
ments granted  by  Korea  in  the  past.  The  "principle  of 
solidarity  which  unites  the  two  Empires"  implies,  and  in 
fact  actually  includes,  even  more  than  this.  While  the  func- 
tions of  Japan's  direct  and  exclusive  control  were  primarily 
confined  to  matters  connected  with  the  direction  of  foreign 
affairs,  some  measure  of  control  over  Korea's  domestic 
affairs  also  is  necessarily  implied.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed, 
for  example,  that  Japan  could  permit  internal  disorders,  or 
the  perpetuation  of  domestic  abuses,  or,  in  brief,  any  of 
those  disturbing  conditions  which  had  hitherto  prevented 
Korean  progress  and  development.  International  control, 
dissociated  from  an  orderly  and  progressive  domestic  policy, 
is  not  practicable;  it  is  not  even  conceivable.  The  com- 
plications and  embarrassments  which  would  inevitably  arise 
from  such  a  complete  dissociation  of  the  two  functions  of 
government  would  far  outweigh  the  advantages.  One  of 
the  most  fruitful  sources  of  international  difficulties  in  Korea 
has  always  been  found  in  domestic  misgovernment.  Having 
assumed  the  responsibility  and  the  obligations  incident  to  the 
direction  of  foreign  affairs,  Japan  has  the  right  to  ask,  and, 
if  need  be,  to  insist,  that  her  task  shall  not  be  fnade  heavier 
by  Korea  herself.  This  did  not,  indeed,  imply,  that  Japan 
should  assume  charge  of  the  administrative  machinery  of 
the  Korean  Government,  but  that  she  should  enjoy  the  right 


272  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

to  have  recourse  to  those  measures  of  guidance  which  natu- 
rally and  properly  fall  within  the  sphere  of  the  duties  she  had 
assumed.  Fortunately,  however,  any  discussion  relating 
to  this  question  must  of  necessity  be  purely  academic;  since 
not  only  the  Convention  of  November  iyth,  but  also  the 
Protocols  and  other  Agreements  concluded  before  that  time 
give  ample  warrant  for  everything  Japan  has  attempted  or 
accomplished  in  this  regard. 

If  corroborative  evidence  is  needed  for  the  account  just 
given  .of  the  negotiations  which  ended  in  the  Convention  of 
November,  1905,  and  upon  the  basis  of  which  Marquis  Ito, 
as  the  Representative  of  the  Japanese  Government,  had 
been  conducting  his  administration  in  Korea  up  to  the  time 
of  the  new  Convention  of  July,  1907,  it  is  afforded  in  fullest 
measure  in  the  following  manner.  A  notable  "Memorial" 
regarding  the  circumstances  under  which  the  earlier  agreement 
was  formed  was  presented  to  the  Korean  Emperor  on  the  fif- 
teenth of  December  of  the  same  year;  this  document  lends 
the  authority  of  all  the  other  chief  actors  in  this  event  to 
every  important  detail  of  the  account  as  already  given.1 

The  memorialists  were  Pak  Chi-sun,  former  Minister  for 
Foreign  Affairs;  Yi  Wan-yong,  Minister  of  Education; 
Kwan  Chung-hiun,  Minister  of  Agriculture,  Commerce  and 
Industry;  Yi  Chi-yung,  Minister  of  Home  Affairs;  and 
Yi  Kun-tak,  Minister  of  War.  The  occasion  of  the  me- 
morial was  the  agitation  against  the  Treaty  which  was  then 
at  its  height,  and  on  account  of  which  these  five  Ministers 

1  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  this  memorial  which  is.  here  followed 
very  closely — and  in  the  most  important  places  even  literally — has 
received  no  attention  from  the  hostile  critics  of  Japan.  It  would  seem 
as  though  neither  Mr.  Hulbert  nor  Mr.  Story  is  aware  of  the  existence 
of  such  a  memorial.  This  is  the  more  remarkable  in  the  case  of  the 
former,  because  he  was  for  years  resident  in  Seoul,  was  familiar  with 
the  Korean  language,  and  was  gathering  material  for  his  written  ac- 
count of  the  affair  while  upon  the  ground. 


THE   COMPACT  273 

were  being  denounced  in  petitions  to  the  Throne,  and  in  the 
public  press,  as  traitors  to  their  country.  The  purpose  of 
the  memorial  was  to  show  that  the  actual  responsibility  for 
the  conclusion  of  the  Treaty  rested  with  the  Emperor  him- 
self. By  relating  all  the  circumstances  in  detail  (in  particular 
the  occurrences  at  the  conference  on  the  evening  of  November 
iyth)  the  memorialists  brought  this  fact  out  into  the  boldest 
prominence.  Their  memorial  was,  in  effect,  both  a  charge 
which  fixed  the  responsibility  for  the  Treaty  on  the  Em- 
peror, and  a  challenge  to  the  Emperor  to  deny  that  the 
Treaty  was  concluded  in  accordance  with  his  own  orders. 
It  was  a  challenge  which  His  Majesty  did  not  accept;  on  the 
contrary,  by  approving  the  memorial,  as  he  did  formally, 
he  acknowledged  the  truth  of  the  statements  it  contained. 
//  was,  indeed,  officially  published  at  the  time,  as  approved 
by  the  Emperor.1  Moreover,  this  memorial  was  prepared  by 
its  authors  and  presented  to  the  Throne  without  the  previous 
knowledge  of  the  Japanese  authorities.  In  fact,  it  contained 
certain  interesting  and  important  details  of  which  they  then 
learned  for  the  first  time. 

The  memorialists  began  with  the  statement  that,  by  reason 
of  His  Majesty's  generosity,  they  are  entrusted  with  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  Ministers  of  State,  although  they  do  not 
merit  such  distinction.  They  have  seen  the  petitions  de- 
nouncing them  to  the  Emperor  as  traitors.  Those  petitions 
affirm  that  the  state  has  been  destroyed;  that  the  people 
have  become  slaves;  and  that  Korean  territory  is  now  the 

1  It  will,  therefore,  clearly  appear  that  no  one  acquainted  with  this 
memorial  can  honestly  place  any  confidence  in  His  Majesty's  subse- 
quent denials  of  the  significance  of  these  facts.  Shall  we  not  also  be 
obliged  to  add,  that  no  one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  memorial  is 
entitled  to  the  confidence  of  any  one  else,  if  he  puts  confidence  in  the 
denials  of  the  Emperor.  Amazement  at  the  audacity  of  the  falsehoods 
which  have  been  told  with  regard  to  this  historically  important  transac- 
tion would  seem  to  be  the  fitting  attitude  of  mind . 


274  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

property  of  another  state.  These  opinions  are  indeed  almost 
too  absurd  to  be  noticed;  but  since  they  affect  the  inde- 
pendence and  dignity  of  the  nation,  the  memorialists  cannot 
permit  them  to  pass  without  protest.  The  new  Treaty  with 
Japan  does  not  change  the  title  of  the  Empire  or  affect  its 
real  independence.  The  prestige  of  the  Imperial  House  re- 
mains as  before;  the  social  fabric  of  the  Empire  is  un- 
affected; and  the  country  is  in  a  peaceful  condition.  The 
only  change  is  that  the  management  of  the  foreign  affairs  of 
the  country  has  been  placed  under  the  control  of  a  neigh- 
boring state.  Besides,  the  Treaty  which  brings  about  this 
result  is  by  no  means  a  new  arrangement.  It  is  the  direct 
result  of  the  Protocols  concluded  in  1904,  and  does  not 
differ  from  them  in  object  or  in  principle.  If  these  persons 
who  now  so  loudly  proclaim  their  patriotism  are  really  sin- 
cere and  courageous  men,  why  did  they  not  denounce  those 
Protocols  when  they  were  made  and  maintain  their  opposi- 
tion with  their  lives  ?  None  of  them  did  that  then ;  yet  now 
they  clamor  for  the  abolition  of  all  these  arrangements  and 
for  the  restoration  of  the  old  order  of  things.  It  is  im- 
possible to  agree  with  them. 

We  desire,  the  memorialists  go  on  to  say,  now  to  state  the 
actual  facts  of  the  conclusion  of  the  new  Treaty: 

When  the  Japanese  Envoy  arrived  in  Korea  all  the  people,  even 
the  children,  knew  that  a  grave  crisis  had  arisen.  And  on  the 
1 5th  of  November  when  Your  Majesty  received  the  Envoy  he 
presented  a  most  important  document.  On  the  following  day 
the  Prime  Minister,  with  the  other  members  of  the  Cabinet, 
except  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  conferred  with  the  Envoy; 
while  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  did  the  same  with  the 
Japanese  Minister.  At  the  former  conference  Sim  San-kiun, 
Imperial  Treasurer  (former  Prime  Minister  and  one  of  the  Em- 
peror's favorites),  was  also  present.  We  discussed  the  matter 
fully  with  the  Envoy,  but  did  not  agree  to  the  proposals  he  made. 


THE   COMPACT  275 

In  the  evening  we  were  received  in  audience  by  your  Majesty  and 
reported  all  that  had  occurred.  We  stated  to  your  Majesty  that 
if  we  went  to  the  Japanese  Legation  the  next  day,  as  had  been 
proposed,  we  should  continue  to  refuse  to  accede  to  the  Japanese 
proposals.  On  the  next  day,  we  went  in  a  body  to  the  Legation 
and  there  conferred  at  length  with  the  Minister  upon  the  subject. 
Finally,  as  we  still  refused  to  concur  in  what  the  Minister  pro- 
posed, he  stated  that  further  conference  would  be  a  waste  of  time; 
that  your  Majesty  alone  had  authority  to  decide,  and  that  he  had 
asked  for  an  audience  through  the  Minister  of  the  Imperial  House- 
hold. Thereupon  the  whole  party  repaired  to  the  Palace.  Your 
Majesty  received  the  members  of  the  Cabinet  in  audience,  and  we 
reported  what  had  happened  at  the  Legation,  and  assured  Your 
Majesty  that  we  were  still  prepared  to  continue  to  refuse  to 
accede  to  the  Japanese  demands.  Your  Majesty  expressed 
anxiety  regarding  the  course  to  be  adopted,  and  said  that,  as  we 
could  not  refuse  positively,  it  would  be  better  to  postpone  nego- 
tiations. 

Then  Yi  Wan-yong  addressed  Your  Majesty.  He  said  that  the 
matter  was  one  which  vitally  affected  the  state;  and  that  all  of 
the  vassals  and  servants  of  Your  Majesty  must  refuse  to  accept 
terms  injurious  to  the  state.  But  the  relationship  of  the  monarch 
to  his  vassals  is  like  that  of  a  father  to  his  sons,  and  therefore  the 
members  of  the  Cabinet  were  bound  by  every  tie  of  duty  to  speak 
frankly  to  their  Master.  He  must,  therefore,  call  His  Majesty's 
attention  to  the  fact  that  the  visit  of  the  Envoy  to  Korea,  and  the 
coming  of  the  Japanese  Minister  to  the  Palace  that  evening,  had 
one  object — and  one  only — namely,  the  conclusion  of  the  Treaty. 
Therefore  it  was  necessary  to  decide  at  once  upon  what  was  to  be 
done;  the  matter  did  not  admit  of  procrastination.  It  is  easy  for  us 
eight  Ministers  to  say  "  No  ";  but  our  refusal  alone  does  not -decide 
the  matter.  We  are  vassals  merely,  and  only  the  word  of  the 
monarch  is  final.  The  Envoy  will  undoubtedly  ask  for  an  audi- 
ence. When  that  occurs,  if  Your  Majesty  continues  firmly  to 
refuse  to  the  end,  it  is  all  right.  But  if  Your  Majesty's  generosity 
should  at  last  induce  you  to.  yield,  what  shall  be  done  then? 
This  is  a  question  which  we  must  consider  and  settle  beforehand. 


276  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

When  Your  Majesty  received  us  in  audience  last  evening  you  ex- 
pressed no  opinion. 

As  the  other  Ministers  said  nothing,  Yi  Wan-yong  went  on  to 
explain  that  what  he  meant  by  studying  the  subject  beforehand 
was  to  examine  the  provisions  of  the  Convention,  several  of  which 
he  was  of  opinion  should  be  changed.  Concerning  such  matters 
it  was  necessary  to  consult  and  to  come  to  some  decision  before- 
hand. 

Then  Your  Majesty  said  that  Marquis  Ito  had  informed  you 
that  if  we  wished  to  modify  the  wording  of  the  Convention  there 
was  a  way  to  do  so.  Your  Majesty  thought  that  if  we  rejected  the 
Convention  categorically,  the  good  relations  of  Korea  and  Japan 
could  not  be  maintained,  and,  in  Your  Majesty's  opinion,  it  was 
possible  to  have  some  of  the  Articles  changed.  Therefore,  what 
Yi  Wan-yong  had  proposed  was  proper. 

Upon  that  Kwan  Chung-hiun  said  that  the  Minister  of  Educa- 
tion had  not  advised  His  Majesty  to  accept  the  Convention,  but 
to  consider  the  matter  upon  the  supposition  that  some  amend- 
ment was  possible.  Your  Majesty  replied  that  you  understood 
that,  but  that  the  difference  was  not  of  practical  consequence. 
The  other  Ministers  expressed  the  same  opinion.  Your  Majesty 
then  called  for  a  draft  of  the  Convention  and  asked  for  opinions 
regarding  the  amendments  which  should  be  made. 

The  memorial  then  goes  on  to  consider  the  amendments1 
which  it  was  thought  would  be  desirable,  and  which  were 
those  subsequently  proposed  at  the  conference  with  Marquis 
Ito.  The  Emperor  approved  these  amendments  and  him- 
self suggested  an  amendment  to  the  effect  that  in  Article  I  of 
the  convention  the  word  "sole"  in  the  sentence  " shall  have 
sole  control"  should  be  omitted.  [This  word,  it  may  be 
remarked  in  passing,  appeared  in  the  original  draft,  but  was 
not  included  in  the  Article  as  finally  agreed  to.] 

Finally,  when  these  deliberations  terminated,  the  Ministers 

1  This  part  of  the  memorial  agrees  closely  with  the  statements  in  the 
first  part  of  the  chapter,  as  to  what  was  then  said. 


THE   COMPACT  277 

collectively  addressed  the  Emperor,  and  stated  that  although 
they  had  conferred  upon  the  adoption  of  possible  amend- 
ments, they  were  still  prepared,  if  His  Majesty  so  ordered 
them,  to  refuse  altogether  to  accept  the  Japanese  proposals. 
In  reply  the  Emperor  commanded  them  not  to  reject  the 
Treaty  finally  and  conclusively.  On  leaving,  Mr.  Han, 
speaking  as  Prime  Minister,  and  Mr.  Pak,  as  Minister  for 
Foreign  Affairs,  stated  that  they  would  not  disobey  His 
Majesty's  commands. 

Then  follows  the  account  of  the  Conference  with  Mr. 
Hayashi,  in  which  it  is  stated  that  the  Prime  Minister,  while 
acknowledging  that  the  Emperor  had  ordered  him  and  his 
colleagues  to  come  to  some  arrangement  with  the  Japanese 
Minister,  refused  to  consider  any  of  the  various  proposals 
made  by  the  latter.  After  that  Marquis  Ito  arrived  and  the 
account  of  what  happened  subsequently,  as  given  in  the 
memorial,  is  the  same  in  all  essential  details  as  that  related 
in  the  first  part  of  this  chapter.1 

With  regard  to  this  Treaty  as  a  whole  no  advocate  of  Japan 
will,  of  course,  claim  that  it  was  entered  into  by  Korea  with 
a  willing  heart — much  less,  in  a  jubilant  spirit.  It  is  seldom, 
indeed,  that  treaties  of  any  sort  are  concluded  between  two 
countries  with  apparently  conflicting  interests,  where  both 
are  equally  well  satisfied  with  their  terms.  In  all  cases  in 
which  one  party  is  compelled  on  grounds  of  expediency,  or 

1  The  purpose  of  this  significant  Memorial,  we  repeat,  is  self-evident.  The 
Ministers,  who  had  agreed  to  the.  Treaty  by  the  Emperor's  commands 
and  with  his  concurrence  and  approval,  were  being  attacked  as  traitors. 
The  Emperor  himself  was  secretly  favoring  the  attack  and  endeavor- 
ing to  create  the  impression  that  he  had  not  agreed  to  the  Treaty,  but 
that  it  was  the  work  of  the  recreant  Cabinet  without  his  approval.  The 
Memorial  forced  him  to  abandon  that  position  once  and  for  all.  As 
before  stated,  it  was  officially  promulgated  with  the  Imperial  sanction, 
and  should  have  ended  all  controversy  at  once.  In  any  country  but 
Korea,  and  with  any  but  the  class  of  writers  whom  these  incidents  have 
developed,  that  would  have  been  its  result. 


278  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

of  fear  that  greater  evils  will  follow  the  rejection  of  the  terms 
proposed  by  the  other  party,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  it  may 
be  said  that  the  will  is  not  free,  but  that  the  deed  is  done 
"under  a  sort  of  compulsion."  But  if  all  treaties  made 
under  such  conditions  may  be  repudiated  when  conditions 
are  changed,  or  if  either  of  the  parties  to  a  treaty  may  act 
with  treachery,  and  without  punishment,  when  called  upon 
to  carry  out  faithfully  the  contracts  thus  entered  into,  the 
peace  of  the  world  cannot  be  secured  or  even  promoted  by 
any  number  of  treaties.  A  feeling  of  regret  and  chagrin, 
especially  on  the  part  of  the  official  classes  and,  indeed,  of  the 
educated  men  of  Korea  in  general,  was  to  be  expected.  So 
far  as  it  was  sincere  and  unselfish,  the  feeling  was  honorable; 
and  for  it  the  Resident- General  and  all  those  agreeing  with 
his  policy  have  never  shown  any  lack  of  respect.  But,  as 
has  already  been  made  clear,  the  important  thing  with  the 
millions  of  Korea  is  not,  who  are  Cabinet  Ministers,  or  who 
manages  the  foreign  affairs  of  the  country,  or  even  who  is 
Emperor;  for  them  the  important  thing  is  the  character  of 
the  local  magistrates  and  the  amount  of  their  "squeezes." 

Protests  and  petitions  followed  the  enactment  of  the 
Treaty  of  November,  1905.  The  Emperor  refused 'to  receive 
the  petitions  or  to  give  audience  to  the  petitioners.  And 
when  two  men,  among  the  most  sincere  and  blameless  of  his 
subjects — General  Min  Yung-whong  and  Mr.  Choi  Ik-hiun— 
persisted  in  petitioning  to  be  punished  (as  would  have  been  in 
accordance  with  Korean  custom  under  similar  circumstances) 
for  their  disobedience  to  the  Emperor's  commands  in  refusing 
to  accept  the  Treaty,  the  Emperor  declined  to  punish  them. 
The  petitioners  then  transferred  their  efforts  from  the  Palace 
to  the  Supreme  Court,  and  were  disappointed  there  also. 
One  of  them,  perhaps  both,  undertook  to  punish  themselves 
by  suicide.  General  Min  thus  became  the  typical  martyr  of 
the  period.  He  is  described  by  one  who  knew  him  well  as  "  a 


THE   COMPACT  279 

man  of  amiable  character,  of  dignified  manners,  and  pleasing 
address.  He  was  known  at  one  time  as  the  'good  Min,'  to 
distinguish  him  from  the  other  members  of  the  family  to 
which  the  late  Queen  belonged."  But  it  has  already  been 
shown  that,  during  the  entire  course  of  Korea's  history,  such 
men  have  almost  always  been  without  sufficient  influence,  or 
strength  of  character,  to  serve  their  country  well  and  escape 
death — usually,  at  the  hands  of  the  Emperor  or  their  rivals, 
sometimes,  however,  by  their  own  hands.  For  a  time  the  air 
was  full  of  rumors  of  suicide  and  uprisings;  but  in  fact  there 
was  little  of  anything  of  the  kind,  even  in  Seoul;  the  stories 
of  wholesale  suicides  are  false.  Beyond  Seoul,  and  outside 
of  a  few  of  the  larger  towns  in  which  greater  numbers  of  the 
Yang-bans  resided,  there  was  scarcely  any  excitement  of  any 
kind.  The  Treaty  then  went  into  effect,  on  the  whole 
quietly,  under  Marquis  Ito  who  had  negotiated  it  as  the 
Representative  of  Japan. 

In  this  way  the  Japanese  Government  in  Korea  was  sub- 
stituted for  the  Korean  Government  in  all  matters  affecting 
the  relations  of  foreign  countries,  and  their  nationals,  to  the 
peninsula.  The  retirement  of  the  Foreign  Legations  fol- 
lowed logically  and  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  is  needless  to 
say  that  this  change  of  responsibility  for  the  conduct  of  these 
relations  was  accepted  without  dissent  or  formal  protest  from 
the  Governments  of  the  civilized  world.  Indeed,  with  the 
exception  of  Russia,  all  the  nations  supremely  interested  had 
acknowledged  already  that,  under  the  Protocols  of  1904, 
Korea  had  lost  its  claim  to  be  recognized  as  an  independent 
state  in  respect  of  its  foreign  affairs. 


CHAPTER  XII 

RULERS   AND   PEOPLE 

A  JUST  appreciation  of  the  mental  and  moral  character- 
istics of  alien  races  is  a  delicate  and  difficult  task  to  achieve, 
even  for  the  experienced  student  of  such  subjects.  From 
others  it  is  scarcely  fair,  no  matter  how  favorable  the  oppor- 
tunities for  observation  may  have  been,  to  expect  any  large 
measure  of  real  success  in  the  accomplishment  of  this  task. 
The  more  important  reasons  for  the  failure  of  most  attempts 
in  race  psychology  may  be  resolved  into  the  following  two: 
a  limitation  of  the  observer's  own  experiences,  which  prevents 
sympathy  and,  therefore,  breadth  of  interpretation;  and  the 
inability  to  rise  above  the  more  strictly  personal  point  of  view. 
In  both  these  respects,  women  are  on  the  whole  decidedly 
inferior  to  men;  accordingly,  their  account  of  the  ethnic 
peculiarities — of  the  ideas,  motives,  and  morals — of  foreign 
peoples  is  customarily  less  trustworthy.  The  inquirer  after 
a  judicial  estimate  of  the  native  character  will  find  this  fact 
amply  illustrated  in  Korea.  But  what  is  more  weighty  in  its 
influence  as  bearing  upon  such  a  problem  as  that  now 
under  discussion  is  this:  all  the  inherent  difficulties  are  en- 
hanced when  it  is  required  to  understand  and  appreciate  an 
Oriental  race  by  a  member  of  a  distinctively  Western  civiliza- 
tion. It  is  without  doubt  true  that  all  men,  of  whatever  race 
or  degree  of  civilization,  are  essentially  alike;  they  constitute 
what  certain  authorities  in  anthropology  have  fitly  called  "a 

spiritual  unity."     But  for  the  individual  who  cannot  expect 

280 


RULERS  AND   PEOPLE  281 

to  find  within  himself  whatever  is  necessary  to  understand 
and  interpret  this  unity,  and  especially  for  the  observer  who 
does  not  care  even  to  detect  and  recognize  the  existence  of 
such  a  unity,  the  difference  between  Orient  and  Occident  is 
a  puzzle — perpetually  baffling  and  seemingly  insoluble. 

Now  in  some  not  wholly  unimportafit  aspects  of  Korean 
character  and  Korean  civilization,  these  difficulties  exist  in 
an  exaggerated  form.  Korea  is  old  in  its  enforced  ignorance, 
sloth,  and  corruption;  but  Korea  is  new  to  rawness,  in  its 
response  to  the  stimulus  of  foreign  and  Western  ideas,  and 
in  its  exposure  to  the  observation,  either  careless  and  casual 
or  patient  and  studious,  of  visitors  and  residents  from 
abroad.  Korea  has  not  yet  been  awakened  to  any  definite 
form  of  intelligent,  national  self -consciousness.  At  the  same 
time,  neither  its  material  resources,  nor  its  physical  character- 
istics, nor  its  history  and  antiquities,  nor  its  educational 
possibilities,  nor  the  distinctive  spirit  of  its  people,  have  ever 
been  at  all  thoroughly  investigated  by  others.  No  wonder, 
then,  that  the  views  expressed  by  the  "oldest  residents"  in 
Korea  regarding  the  characteristics  of  its  rulers  and  its 
people — Emperor,  late  Queen,  Yang-bans,  pedlers,  and 
peasants  (for  there  is  almost  no  middle  class) — are  strangely 
conflicting.  Diverse  and  even  contradictory  traits  of  char- 
acter are,  with  equal  confidence  and  on  the  basis  of  an  equally 
long  and  intimate  acquaintance,  ascribed  by  different  persons 
to  all  these  classes. 

The  true  and  satisfactory  account  of  these  differences  of 
opinion  is  not,  however,  to  be  found  by  wholly  denying  the 
justness  of  either  of  the  opposite  points  of  view.  Contradic- 
tions are  inherent  in  that  very  type  of  character  of  which  the 
Koreans  afford  so  many  striking  examples.  Indeed,  all  peo- 
ples, when  at  a  certain  stage  of  race-culture,  and  the  multitudes 
in  all  civilizations,  are  just  that — bundles  of  confused  and 
conflicting  ideas,  impulses,  and  practices,  which  have  never 


282  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

been  unified  into  a  consistent  "character."  The  average 
Korean  is  not  only  liable  to  be  called,  he  is  liable  actually  to  be, 
kindly  and  yet  cruel,  generous  and  yet  intensely  avaricious, 
with  a  certain  sense  of  honor  and  yet  hopelessly  corrupt  in 
his  official  relations.  Accordingly,  as  one  puts  emphasis  on 
this  virtue  to  the  exclusion  or  suppression  of  that  vice,  or 
turns  the  eye  upon  the  dark  and  disgusting  side  of  the  picture 
and  shuts  out  the  side  that  might  afford  pleasure  and  hope, 
will  one's  estimate  be  made  of  the  actual  condition  and  future 
prospects  of  the  nation. 

But  let  us  begin  our  brief  description  with  the  man  who  has 
been  for  more  than  a  generation  the  chief  ruler  of  Korea,  the 
now  ex-Emperor.  He  is  a  typical  Korean — especially  in 
respect  of  his  characteristic  weakness  of  character,  his  taste 
for  and  adeptness  at  intrigue,  his  readiness  to  deceive  and 
corrupt  others,  and  himself  to  be  deceived  and  corrupted. 
For  all  this  no  specially  occult  reasons  need  to  be  assigned. 
With  a  weak  nature,  his  youth  spent  under  the  pernicious 
influence  of  eunuchs  and  court  concubines  and  hangers-on, 
his  manhood  dominated  by  an  unceasing  and  bloody  feud 
between  his  wife  and  his  father,  his  brief  period  of  "inde- 
pendence" one  orgy  of  misrule,  and  his  latest  years  con- 
trolled by  sorceresses,,  soothsayers,  low-born  and  high-born 
intriguers,  and  selfish  and  unwise  foreign  advisers:  what  but 
incurably  unsound  character,  uncontrollable  instability  of 
conduct,  and  a  destiny  fated  to  be  full  of  disaster,  could  be 
expected  from  such  a  man  so  placed  ? 

The  father  of  the  ex-Emperor  was  Yi  Ha-eung,  Prince  of 
Heung  Song,  who  was  long  the  so-called  "Regent"  or 
"  Prince-Parent,"  and  is  best  known  in  history  as  the  "Tai 
Won  Kun."  It  has  been  said  of  him  that  "he  was  the 
grandson  of  a  great  and  unfortunate  crown  prince,  the 
great-grandson  of  a  famous  king,  the  nephew  of  another 
king,  and  the  father  of  still  another  king."  The  lineal  an- 


RULERS   AND   PEOPLE  283 

cestor  of  the  Tai  Won  Kim  was  Yong-jong,  who  reigned 
from  1724  to  1776.  This  sovereign  quarrelled  with  his  own 
son  and  had  him  put  to  death  as  insane;  but  other  issue 
failing,  the  crown  descended  through  the  murdered  crown 
prince,  and  from  him  through  three  lines  of  monarchs. 
Until  his  son  was  chosen  to  occupy  the  throne,  the  Tai  Won 
Kun,  although  he  had  married  into  the  powerful  Min  family, 
does  not  iseem  to  have  exercised  much  influence  in  politics. 
But  in  1804,  on  the  death  of  the  king,  without  male  issue 
the  Dowager X^ueen  Cho,  by  what  is  reported  to  have  been 
a  not  altogether  legitimate  procedure,  proclaimed  the  second 
son  of  the  Tai  Won  Kun,  then  a  boy  of  only  twelve  years, 
as  the  successor  to  the  throne. 

Little  is  exactly  known  as  to  the  care  or  education  of  the 
boyish  king  during  his  earliest  years.  It  is  commonly  re- 
ported that  he  was  fond  of  outdoor  sports,  especially  of 
archery,  and  disinclined  to  study.  Yet  he  is  reputed  to  be 
a  fine  Chinese  penman  and  to  be  well  acquainted  with  the 
Chinese  classics.  His  father  was  a  strict  disciplinarian  and, 
although  he  was  never  legally  in  control  of  affairs  during  his 
son's  minority,  his  influence  was  dominant  so  long  as  he 
kept  on  good  terms  with  the  wily  Queen  Dowager  and  the 
Ministers  of  her  selection.  The  failure  of  all  foreign  at- 
tempts to  enter  into  friendly  relations  with  the  Koreans, 
and  the  persecution  and  slaughter  of  foreign  Christian 
priests  and  of  thousands  of  Korean  Christians  during  this 
period,  are  customarily  attributed  to  the  influence  of  the 
Tai  Won  Kun. 

When  thirteen  years  of  age,  the  new  king  was  married  to 
a  girl  selected  for  him  from  the  Min  family.  But  until  1873 
his  position  as  ruler  was  only  nominal;  on  the  attainment  of 
his  majority,  however,  the  deadly  struggle  between  the  wife 
and  the  father,  the  Queen  and  the  Prince  Parent,  began  to 
be  revealed.  A  word  as  to  the  character  of  the  woman  is 


284  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

necessary  in  this  place,  in  order  to  understand  the  conduct  of 
the  King  and,  as  well,  the  recent  history  of  Korea.  The 
Queen  was,  without  doubt,  an  unusually  gifted  and  attractive 
woman,  with  the  ability  to  attach  others  to  her,  both  men 
and  women,  in  a  powerful  way.  But  a  more  unscrupulous 
and  horribly  cruel  character  has  rarely  disgraced  a  throne, 
whether  in  ancient  or  in  modern  times.  Her  rivals  among 
the  women  of  the  court  were  tortured  and  killed  at  her 
command;  the  adherents  of  the  Tai  Won  Kun  were  de- 
capitated and  their  bodies  thrown  into  the  streets  or  their 
heads  used  to  festoon  the  gateway.  One  of  the  Koreans 
acquainted  with  court  affairs  during  her  reign  informed  a 
friend  of  the  writer  that,  by  careful  calculation,  he  had 
reckoned  the  number  of  2,867  persons  put  to  death  as  the 
victims  of  her  personal  hatred  and  ambition.  The  number 
seems  incredible,  and  there  is  no  way  to  verify  it;  but  no 
one  who  knows  the  history  of  the  Korean  Court,  even  down 
to  very  recent  years,  will  assert  that  it  cannot  be  correct. 
The  tragic  death  of  this  woman,  not  improperly,  drew  tem- 
porarily a  veil  over  these  atrocities.  But  their  existence  is 
a  part  of  the  proof  that,  pernicious  as  was  much  of  the 
father's  influence  over  the  king,  the  influence  of  the  wife  and 
her  family  was  yet  more  pernicious. 

It  was  under  influences  such  as  these  that  the  royal  char- 
acter of  Yi-Hy-eung,  now  ex-Emperor,  developed,  and  that 
all  the  earlier  part  of  his  reign  was  concluded.  The  result 
was  to  be  expected — namely,  an  amiable  and  weak  nature 
rendered  deceitful,  cruel,  and  corrupt.  The  impression 
made  by  his  presence — as  already  described  (see  p.  46  f.) — 
is  not  one  of  dignity  and  strength  of  character;  but  the  voice 
is  pleasant,  the  smile  is  winsome,  the  willingness  to  forgive 
and  to  do  a  good  turn,  if  either  or  both  can  be  done  without 
too  much  sacrifice  or  inconvenience,  is  prompt  and  motived 
by  kindly  feeling.  His  Majesty  is  usually  ready  to  listen 


The   Ex-Emperor  and  Present  Emperor. 


RULERS   AND   PEOPLE  285 

without  malignant  anger  or  lasting  resentment  to  unwelcome 
advice  and  even  to  stern  rebuke.  On  the  other  hand,  as 
already  said,  he  is  a  master  of  intrigue ;  and  more  than  once, 
until  very  lately,  he  has  succeeded  in  quite  surpassing  at 
their  own  tricks  the  wily  foreigners  who  thought  to  get  an 
advantage  over  him.  On  the  other  hand,  his  ignorance  and 
credulity  \haye  often  rendered  him  an  easy  victim  to  the  in- 
trigue of  others.  As  one  foreign  minister,  a  stanch  friend, 
said  of  him  :\"  You  may  give  His  Majesty  the  best  advice, 
the  only  sensiole  advice  possible  under  the  circumstances; 
he  will  assent  cordially  to  all  you  say,  and  you  leave  him 
confident  that  your  advice  will  be  followed.  Then  some 
worthless  fellow  comes  in,  tells  him  something  else,  and  what 
you  have  said  is  all  wiped  off  the  slate." 

In  spite  of  his  natural  amiability  this  ruler  has  frequently 
shown  a  cold-blooded  and  calculating  cruelty,  made  more 
conspicuous  by  ingratitude  and  treachery;  and  his  reign 
has  been  throughout  characterized  by  a  callous  disregard  of 
the  sufferings  of  the  people  through  the  injustice  of  his  own 
minions.  To  quote  again  the  estimate  of  a  foreign  minister : 
"His  Majesty  loves  power,  but  seems'  color-blind  when  it 
comes  to-  the  faculty  of  distinguishing  between  the  true  and 
the  false.  He  would  rather  have  one  of  the  Government 
Departments  pay  20,000  yen  in  satisfaction  of  a  debt  which 
he  owes  than  pay  5,000  yen  out  of  his  own  purse.1  And  he 
allows  himself  to  be  cheated  with  the  same  sense  of  tolera- 

1  An  amusing  illustration  of  the  ex-Emperor's  way  of  filling  his  privy 
purse  is  found  in  the  following  authentic  incident.  At  one  time  the 
large  sum  of  270,000  yen  was  wanted  in  cash  to  pay  a  bill  for  silks  and 
jades  which,  it  was  alleged,  had  been  purchased  in  China  for  Lady  Om. 
When  the  request  was  made  to  exhibit  the  precious  goods  which  had 
cost  so  enormous  a  sum,  and  which  were  going  to  make  so  large  an 
unexpected  drain  upon  insufficient  revenues,  the  show  of  materials  was 
entirely  unsatisfactory.  But,  if  not  the  goods,  at  least  the  bill  itself 
could  be  produced.  A  bill  was  then  brought  to  light,  with  the  items 


286  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

tion  which  he  has  for  those  who  cheat  the  Government,  pro- 
vided that  the  culprit  has  the  saving  grace  of  a  pleasing  de- 
portment." One  of  his  most  able  and  upright  Korean 
officials  once  declared:  "It  is  true  I  am  devoted  to  His 
Majesty,  and  I  am  sure  he  likes  me;  but  if  I  were  to  be 
executed  for  some  crime  of  which  I  was  completely  inno- 
cent, and  a  friend  were  to  come  to  His  Majesty,  while  he 
was  at  dinner,  and  implore  his  intercession,  if  it  meant  any 
danger,  even  the  slightest,  to  him,  he  would  leave  me  to  my 
fate  and  go  on  eating  with  a  good  appetite."  During  the 
Boxer  troubles  in  China  a  plot  was  devised  by  the  reigning 
favorite  of  the  Emperor,  Yi  Yong-ik,  to  kill  all  the  foreigners 
in  Korea;  the  plot  was  exposed,  but  the  favorite  did  not 
suffer  in  his  influence  over  the  Emperor.  Over  and  over 
again,  in  earlier  days,  the  missionaries  have  appealed  to  him 
in  vain  to  secure  their  converts  against  robbery  and  death 
at  the  hands  of  imperial  favorites.  It  was  formerly  his 
custom  to  have  at  stated  intervals  large  numbers  of  persons 
executed — inconvenient  witnesses,  political  suspects,  ene- 
mies of  men  in  power.  This  custom  of  indiscriminate  "jail- 
cleaning"  was,  as  far  as  it  was  safe  and  allowable  under  the 
growing  foreign  influences,  continued  down  toward  the 
present  time. 

That  the  foregoing  account  of  the  character  of  the  man 
who  came  to  the  throne  of  Korea,  as  a  boy  of  twelve,  in  1864, 
and  abdicated  this  throne  in  1907,  is  a  true  picture  needs  no 

made  out  in  due  form,  but  by  a  Chinese  firm  of  merchants  in  Seoul 
instead  of  in  China.  The  Chinese  Consul-General,  on  being  inquired 
of,  replied  that  there  was  indeed  such  a  reputable  Chinese  firm  in  the 
city;  and  he  desired  to  have  the  matter  further  investigated  lest  the 
credit  and  business  honor  of  his  countrymen  might  suffer  by  connection 
of  this  sort  with  His  Majesty's  efforts  to  obtain  ready  money.  Investiga- 
tion elicited  the  fact  that  a  certain  Court  official  had  visited  this  firm 
and  inquired  how  much  such  and  such  things  would  cost,  if  purchased 
in  Shanghai.  But  no  goods  had  been  delivered  or  even  actually  ordered! 


RULERS  AND   PEOPLE  287 

additional  evidence  to  that  now  available  by  the  world  at 
large.  Strangely  inconsistent  in  some  of  its  features  as  it 
may  seem  to  be,  the  portrait  is  unmistakably  true  to  life. 
No  wonder  then,  that,  after  exhausting  all  his  resources  of 
advice,  rebuke,  and  warning,  the  Resident-General  was 
regretfully  forced  to  this  conclusion :  no  cure  for  the  tempera- 
ment and  habits  of  His  Majesty  of  Korea  could  possibly  be 
found.  But  this  had  long  been  the  conclusion  of  his  own 
Cabinet  Ministers  and  all  others  among  the  wiser  of  the 
Korean  officials.  It  was  finally  by  these  Ministers,  without 
the  orders,  consent,  or  even  knowledge  of  the  Marquis  Ito,  that 
in  order  to  save  the  country  from  more  serious  humiliation 
and  disaster,  movements  were  initiated  to  secure  his  abdica- 
tion of  the  throne  he  had  disgraced  for  more  than  forty  years. 

As  to  the  Korean  ruling  classes  generally,  the  Yang-bans 
so-called,  it  may  be  said  that  for  centuries  they  have  been, 
with  few  exceptions,  of  a  character  to  correspond  with  their 
monarchs.  The  latter  have  also  been,  with  few  exceptions, 
such  in  character  as  to  represent  either  the  weak  side  or  the 
corrupt  and  cruel  side,  or  both,  of  the  ruler  just  described. 
This  truth  of  "like  king,  like  nobles,"  was  amply  illus- 
trated by  the  case  of  Kwang-ha,  in  the  early  years  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  When  the  monk  Seung-ji  induced  this 
king  to  build  the  so-called  "Mulberry  Palace,"  thousands  of 
houses  were  razed,  the  people  oppressed  with  taxation,  and 
the  public  offices  sold  in  order  to  raise  the  funds.  When  the 
same  monarch,  yielding  to  the  influences  of  his  concubine 
and  her  party,  committed  the  infamy  of  expelling  the  Queen- 
Dowager  from  Seoul,  only  one  prominent  courtier,  Yi  Hang- 
bok,  with  eight  others,  stood  out  against  930  officials  and 
170  of  the  king's  relatives  who  were  ready  to  vote  for  the 
shameful  deed.1 

The  proportion  of  courageous  and   honest  officials  con- 

1  See  Hulbert,  The  History  of  Korea,  II,  p.  61  /. 


288  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

nected  with  the  Korean  Court  had  not  greatly  increased  up 
to  the  time  when  Marquis  Ito  undertook  the  task  of  its 
purification.  This  fact,  in  itself,  so  discouraging  to  the 
effort  at  instituting  reforms  from  above  downward  on  the 
part  of  the  Koreans  themselves,  is  made  obvious  in  a  strik- 
ing way  by  the  analysis  of  a  brief,  confidential  description 
(a  sort  of  official  Korean  "Who  is  Who?")  of  ninety-six 
persons,  prepared  by  one  well  acquainted  with  the  men  and 
their  history,  but  favorably  disposed  toward — even  preju- 
diced in  favor  of — the  side  of  Korea.  Of  these  ninety-six 
officials,  only  five  are  pronounced  thoroughly  honorable  and 
trustworthy  characters;  twenty-seven  are  classed  as  fairly 
good;  the  remainder  are  denominated  very  weak,  or  very 
bad.  Subsequent  developments  have  revealed  the  weakness 
or  corruption  of  most  of  those  whom  this  paper  less  than 
ten  years  ago  pronounced  to  be  on  the  whole  either  hopeful 
or  positively  good.  What  this  means  for  Korea  to-day  can 
be  judged  by  the  following  selected  examples:  (i)  "A  rather 
proud  and  rich  member  of  the  -  —  Clan;  a  notorious 
squeezer,  and  one  whose  services  may  always  be  had  for  a 
price;  absolutely  unreliable  and  incapable  of  patriotic  im- 
pulses." (2)  "  A  contemptible  but  rich  member  of  the  - 
Clan;  a  most  detestable  oppressor  of  the  people  as  shown  in 
Pyeng  Yang;  incapable  of  good  impulses  apparently."  (3) 
" A  slippery  self-made  man;  Emperor's  private  treasurer; 
Vice-Minister  of  Interior  for  many  years;  rose  through  in- 
fluence of  his  cousin,  but  not  loyal  to  latter's  memory;  can- 
not be  influenced  except  through  fear  or  favor."  (4)  "A 
self-made  man  who  might  better  have  let  out  the  job;  has 
courage,  and  is  unmercifully  cruel  and  oppressive;  is  the 
most  ignorant  official  in  high  office  during  twenty  years." 
Yet  this  low-born  and  ignorant  fellow  had  almost  absolute 
control  of  the  Emperor  and  of  the  country's  finances  for 
several  years. 


RULERS  AND   PEOPLE  289 

The  examples  given  above  may  serve  to  describe  the  one- 
third  of  the  ninety-six  officials  characterized  by  extreme  im- 
morality. Of  the  other  one-third,  whose  services  to  their 
country  are  rendered  available  only  for  evil  on  account  of 
their  weakness,  the  following  examples  afford  a  sufficiently 
accurate  description:  (i)  " Foreign  Minister  repeatedly;  very 
deficientNin  intelligence,  but  says  little  and  looks  wise;  too 
feeble  to  bfe  dishonest,  but  an  easy  tool  for  one  who  cares  to 

use  him."  \a)  "Governor  of  ;  a  weak,  abominable 

man,  who  has  opne  well  at ,  because  kept  in  check  by 

the  Japanese;  would  be  a  scoundrel  if  the  opportunity 
offered;  a  tool  of  Yi  Yong-ik"  (a  man  notorious  for  his 
corruption  and  oppression,  on  account  of  which  some  of  the 
highest  officials  knelt  before  the  Palace  gate  during  the  entire 
day  and  night  of  November  28,  1902,  praying  for  his  trial 
and  punishment;  but  he  was  saved  by  the  Emperor,  who 
feared  him;  he  was  even  subsequently  brought  back  from 
banishment  and  restored  to  his  post  as  "  Director  of  the 
Imperial  Estates").  (3)  "An  old  man  of  remarkable  his- 
tory; has  been  on  all  sides  of  the  political  fence;  is  good  at 
times,  and  apparently  a  patriot,  and  then  he  will  turn  up  on 
quite  the  opposite  side." 

It  cannot  be  supposed  that  an  official  class,  so  constituted 
and  so  thoroughly  imbued  with  such  unwholesome  charac- 
teristics, would  easily  form  within  itself  a  party  loyal  to 
reform,  and  brave  and  strong  enough  to  carry  its  loyalty  out 
into  practical  effect.  As  a  matter  of  fact  no  such  political 
party  has  ever  been  formed  and  maintained  to  any  successful 
issue,  in  the  history  of  Korea.  For  this  we  may  take  the 
word  of  Mr.  Homer  B.  Hulbert,  who  says,1  regarding  the 
formation  of  parties  in  1575:  "These  parties  have  never 
represented  any  principle  whatever.  They  have  never  had 
any  platforms,  but  have  been,  and  are,  simply  political  clans 

1  The  History  o/  Korea,  L,  p.  339. 


29o  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

bent  upon  securing  the  royal  favor  and  the  offices  and  emolu- 
ments that  go  therewith."  In  another  work  of  the  same 
author  we  are  told:  "From  that  day  onward  (middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century)  politics  has  been  a  war  of  factions,  strug- 
gling for  wealth  and  power,  with  no  scruples  against  murder 
or  other  crime."  The  Koreans  are,  indeed,  given  to  the 
formation  of  societies  and  parties  of  various  descriptions; 
the  more  improper  or  nearly  impossible  are  the  ends  to  be 
reached,  and  the  more  clandestine  and  illicit  the  means  em- 
ployed, the  greater  the  temporary  enthusiasm  which  they 
are  likely  to  excite.  All  these  parties  have  therefore  one 
plank  and  one  plan  of  action:  to  get  the  ear  of  the  king,  to 
seize  upon  and  control  the  office-making  power,  and  so  to 
put  in  every  lucrative  or  honorable  position  their  own  par- 
tisans. It  is  "the  spoils  system  sublimated";  for  there  is 
"absolutely  no  admixture  of  any  other  element."1 

On  the  other  hand,  this  same  factional  and  corrupt  spirit 
among  the  ruling  classes  has  made  it  certain  that,  "however 
good  a  statesman  a  man  might  be,  the  other  side  would  try 
to  get  his  head  removed  from  his  shoulders  at  the  first  op- 
portunity; and  the  more  distinguished  he  became,  the 
greater  this  desire  would  be.  From  that  time  (again  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century)  to  this,  almost  all  the  really 
great  men  of  Korea  have  met  a  violent  death.^/  .  .  .  "No 
matter  how  long  one  lives  in  this  country,  he  will  never  get 
to  understand  how  a  people  can  possibly  drop  to  such  a  low 
estate  as  to  be  willing  to  live  without  the  remotest  hope  of 
receiving  even-handed  justice.  Not  a  week  passes  but  you 
come  in  personal  contact  with  cases  of  injustice  and  bru- 
tality that  would  mean  a  riot  in  any  civilized  country."2 

As  to  the  public  justice  when  administered  by  such  a 
ruling  class,  this  has  actually  been  what  might  have  been 

1  See  Hulbert,  The  History  of  Korea,  II. ,  p.  54. 

2  Hulbert,  The  Passing  of  Korea,  pp.  50,  58. 


RULERS  AND   PEOPLE  291 

expected.  The  one  judicial  principle  universally  recognized 
is  that  justice  is  worth  its  price;  the  side  which  can  offer  the 
largest  bribe  of  money  ot  influence  will  uniformly  win  its 
case.  Of  justice  in  Korea,  to  quote  from  Mr.  Hulbert  again,1 
there  is  "not  much  more  than  is  absolutely  necessary  to  hold 
the  fabric  of  the  commonwealth  from  disintegration."  Until 
the  Chino- Japan  war,  when  Japanese  influence  made  itself 
felt  in  a  controlling  way,  the  brutal  spectacles  were  not  in- 
frequent of  \nen  having  their  heads  hacked  off  with  dull 
swords,  or  their\bones  broken  by  beating  with  a  huge  paddle. 
Death  by  poison  with  extract  made  by  boiling  the  centipede 
was  administered  to  prisoners.  It  was  not  till  1895  that  the 
law  was  abolished  which  required  the  poisoning  of  mother, 
wife,  and  daughter  for  the  man's  treason,  the  poisoning  of 
wife  for  his  crime  of  murder  or  arson,  and  the  enslaving  of 
wife  for  his  theft.  When  the  reformers  of  1894  ordered  the 
restoration  to  their  lawful  owners  of  the  lands  and  houses 
which  had  been  illegally  seized,  numerous  officials — some  of 
whom  were  well  known  in  foreign  circles  as  partners  of  con- 
cessions obtained  through  influence — lost  large  fractions  of 
their  wealth  because  of  the  decree. 

After  describing  the  Yang-ban  as  one  sees  him  upon  the 
streets  or  meets  him  in  social  gatherings  at  Seoul  in  the  fol- 
lowing terms — a  "dignified,  stately  gentleman,  self-centred, 
self -contented,  naively  curious  about  the  foreigner,  albeit  in 
a  slightly  contemptuous  fashion" — a  writer  well  acquainted 
with  the  Korean  gentry  goes  on  to  say:  "Experience  teaches 
that  this  fine  gentleman  is  not  ashamed  to  live  upon  his 
relatives,  to  the  remotest  degree;  that  he  disdains  labor  and 
knows  nothing  of  business;  that  he  is  not  a  liar  from  malice, 
but  that  he  is  a  prevaricator  by  instinct  and  habit.  Even 
when  he  wishes  to  tell  the  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth, 
it  leaves  his  lips  so  embroidered  with  fanciful  elaborations 

1  The  Passing  of  Korea,  p.  67. 


292  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

that  the  Father  of  lies  would  be  glad  to  claim  it  for  his  own. 
With  all  that,  he  may,  according  to  the  accepted  standards 
of  his  class,  be  an  upright  citizen,  a  kind  husband,  and  a 
conscientious  parent.  And  just  as  likely  as  not,  he  may 
possess  qualities  which  endear  him  to  the  foreign  observer." 

Under  centuries  of  subjection  to  a  ruling  class  having  the 
character  described  above,  the  mental  and  moral  character- 
istics- of  the  Korean  people  have  been  developed  as  might 
have  been  expected.  The  ethnic  mixture  from  which  the 
race  has  sprung  is  possessed  of  fine  physical  and  spiritual 
qualities.  The  male  members  of  the  race,  especially,  are  in 
general  of  good  height,  well  formed,  and  capable  of  endur- 
ance and  achievement  in  enterprises  demanding  bodily 
strength.  They  are  undoubtedly  fond  of  their  ease  and  even 
slothful — for  man  when  not  stimulated  by  hope  or  necessity 
is  naturally  a  lazy  animal — as  the  impression  from  the  rows 
of  coolies  and  peasants  squatted  upon  the  ground  and 
sucking  their  pipes,  or  lying  prone  in  the  sunlight,  during 
the  working  hours  of  the  day,  bears  witness.  As  for  the 
Yang-ban,  on  no  account  will  he  do  manual  work.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  lower  classes  make  good  workmen,  when 
well  taught  and  properly  "bossed";  and  their  miners,  for 
example,  are  said  by  experts  to  be  among  the  best  in  the 
world.  The  success  in  manual  pursuits  of  those  who  emi- 
grated to  Hawaii  some  years  ago  testifies  also  to  their  inherent 
capacity.  As  has  already  been  said,  the  Koreans  are  much 
given  to  forming  all  manner  of  associations;  they  are  "grega- 
rious in  their  crimes  as  in  their  pastimes."  When  well  treated 
they  are  generally  good-natured  and  docile — easy  to  control 
under  even  a  tolerably  just  administration.  Nor  are  they, 
probably,  such  cowards  that  they  cannot  be  trained  to  acquit 
themselves  well  in  war. 

The  prevailing,  the  practically  universal  vices  and  crimes 
are  those  which  are  inevitable  under  any  such  government,  if 


RULERS  AND   PEOPLE  293 

long  continued,  as  that  which  has  burdened  and  degraded 
the  Korean  populace  from  the  beginning  of  their  obscure 
history  as  a  complex  of  kingdoms  down  to  the  present  time. 
What  their  vices  and  crimes  are  can  be  learned  even  better 
from  the  lips  of  their  professed  friends  than  from  those  whom 
they  regard  as  their  open  or  secret  enemies.  Of  the  average 
Korean  Mr.  Hulbert1  affirms:  "You  may  call  him  a  liar  or 
a  libertine,  and  he  will  laugh  it  off;  but  call  him  mean  and 
you  flick  him  on  the  raw."  "In  Korea  it  is  as  common  to 
use  the  expression,  'You  are  a  liar'  as  it  is  with  us  to  say, 
*  You  don't  say. '  .  .  .  A  Korean  sees  about  as  much  moral 
turpitude  in  a  lie  as  we  see  in  a  mixed  metaphor  or  a  split 
infinitive."  As  to  his  good  nature:  "Any  accession  of  im- 
portance or  prestige  goes  to  his  head  like  new  wine  and  is 
apt  to  make  him  offensive."  The  same  author,  after  saying 
of  the  Korean  bullock,  "This  heavy,  slow-plodding  animal, 
docile,  long-suffering,  uncomplaining,  would  make  a  fitting 
emblem  of  the  Korean  people,"  goes  on  to  describe  his  own 
disgust  at  the  frequent  sight  of  the  drunken,  brutal  bullock- 
driver,  venting  his  spleen  on  some  fellow  Korean  by  cruelly 
beating  his  own  bullock.  Torturing  animals  is  a  favorite 
pastime  for  both  children  and  adults.  The  horrid  brutality 
of  the  Korean  mob,  to  which  reference  has  already  been 
repeatedly  made,  has  been  more  than  once  witnessed  by  those 
now  living  in  Seoul;  it  would  speedily  be  witnessed  again,  if 
the  hand  of  the  Japanese  Protectorate  were  withdrawn. 
For  the  Korean,  when  angry,  is  recklessly  cruel  and  entirely 
careless  of  life,  and  resembles  nothing  else  so  much  as  a 
"fanged  beast."2  When  combined  with  the  superstition  and 
the  incredible  credulity  which  prevail  among  the  populace, 
this  brutality  constitutes  a  standing  menace  to  the  peace  and 
life  of  the  foreign  population  residing  in  the  midst  of  them. 

1  The  Passing  of  Korea,  pp.  38,  41. 

2  IUd.,  p.  43, 


294  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

It  was  as  late  as  1888  that  the  mob,  excited  by  the  report  that 
the  Americans  and  Europeans  were  engaged  in  the  business, 
for  profit,  of  killing  Korean  babies  and  of  cutting  off  the 
breasts  of  Korean  women  to  use  in  the  manufacture  of  con- 
densed milk,  were  scarcely  repressed  from  wholesale  arson 
and  murder.1 

I  The  anti- Japanese  natives  and  foreigners  have  with  more 
or  less  good  reason  complained  that  an  increase  of  sexual 
impurity  and  of  licensed  vice  has  resulted  from  the  Japanese 
Protectorate  over  Korea.  Without  entering  upon  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  difficult  problem  involved  in  these  charges,  it 
is  enough  to  say  that  "corruption  of  the  Koreans"  in  this 
regard  is  scarcely  a  proper  claim  to  bring  forward,  under 
any  circumstances.  It  is  of  no  particular  significance  to  de- 
termine whether  the  statement  of  a  recent  writer  that  the 
exposure  of  their  breasts  on  the  streets  is  characteristic  of 
Korean  women  generally,  is  a  libel,  or  not.  It  is  true,  indeed, 
that  the  foreign  lady  who  has  done  much  to  encourage  among 
the  natives  of  her  own  sex  in  Seoul  a  certain  regard  for  the 
decencies  of  civilization,  was  accustomed,  not  many  years  ago, 
to  provide  herself  with  safety-pins  and  accompany  their  use 
upon  the  garments  of  the  lower  classes  (women  of  the  higher 
classes  do  not  appear  upon  the  streets)  with  a  moral  lecture. 
But  to  one  acquainted  with  the  unimportant  influence  of 
such  exposure  upon  really  vicious  conduct  among  peoples  of  a 
certain  grade  of  race-culture,  the  charge,  whether  true  or  not, 
is  comparatively  petty.  Much  more  determinative  is  it  to 
learn  from  their  friendly  historians  that  only  one  in  ten  of 
their  songs  could  with  decency  be  published;  that  almost  all 
their  stories  are  of  a  salacious  character  and,  "however  dis- 
creditable it  may  be,  they  are  a  true  picture  of  the  morals  of 
Korea  to-day";  and  that  among  the  lower  classes  "the  utmost 

'See  the  account  of  the  "Baby  War"  and  "Breast  Hunters,"  The 
History  of  Korea,  II. ,  p.  245. 


RULERS   AND   PEOPLE  295 

promiscuity  prevails.  "A  man  may  have  half-a-dozen  wives 
a  year  in  succession.  No  ceremony  is  required,  and  it  is 
simply  a  mutual  agreement  of  a  more  or  less  temporary 
nature."1 

As  to  business  honesty^  or  respect  for  property  rights,  as 
such7~there  is  alniosFnone  of  it  among  the  people  of  Korea. 
But-wkat-eLc  could_be  especial  uf  pedlera.  peasants,  and 
coolies,  who  have  lived  under  the  corrupt  and  oppressive  \/ 
government  of  such  rulers  during  centuries  ot  time  7^  To  u 
quote  again  irom  the  friendly  historian:2  *'In  case  a  man 
has  to  foreclose  a  mortgage  and  enter  upon  possession  of  the 
property,  he  will  need  the  sanction  of  the  authorities,  since 
possession  here,  as  elsewhere,  is  nine  points  of  the  law.  The 
trouble  is  that  a  large  fraction  of  the  remaining  point  is  de- 
pendent upon  the  caprice  or  the  venality  of  the  official  whose 
duty  is  to  adjudicate  the  case.  In  a  land  where  bribery  is 
almost  second  nature,  and  where  private  rights  are  of  small 
account  unless  backed  by  some  kind  of  influence,  the  thwart- 
ing of  justice  is  exceedingly  common."  More  astonishing 
still,  from  our  point  of  view,  is  the  use  made  of  the  public 
properties,  which  until  recently  prevailed  even  in  the  city  of 
Seoul,  by  the  lowest  of  the  people.  Any  Korean  might  extend 
his  temporary  booth  or  shop  out  into  the  street,  and  then, 
when  people  had  become  accustomed  to  this,  quietly  plant 
permanent  posts  at  the  extreme  limit  of  his  illicit  appropria- 
tion. On  being  expostulated  with,  "  he  will  put  on  a  look  of 
innocence  and  assert  that  he  has  been  using  the  space  for 
many  years";3  indeed,  "he  inherited  it  from  his  father  or 
father's  father."  To  this  day  the  making  of  false  deeds,  or 
the  deeding  of  the  same  property  to  two  different  purchasers 
(by  one  false  deed  and  one  genuine,  or  by  both  false)  is  an 

1  The  Passing  of  Korea,  pp.  311,  319,  369. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  283. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  247. 


296  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

exceedingly  common  occurrence.  If  the  native  wanted  a 
place  for  the  deposit  of  his  filth,  and  the  drain  near  his  house 
was  already  full,  he  dug  a  hole  in  the  street;  if  he  wanted  dirt 
for  his  own  use,  he  took  it  from  the  street.  "  Scores  of 
times,"  says  Hulbert,  "I  have  come  upon  places  where  a  hole 
has  been  dug  in  the  street  large  enough  to  bury  an  ox." 
Meanwhile,  petty  stealing  and  highway  robbery  have  been 
going  on  all  over  the  land.  This,  too,  is  the  practical  morality 
of  the  Korean  populace,  when  unrestrained  by  foreign  con- 
trol, even  down  to  the  present  time. 

A  curious  confirmation  of  the  foregoing  estimate  of  the 
mental  and  moral  character  of  the  people  of  Korea  was 
afforded  by  the  "  confessions"  which  poured  forth  in  perfervid 
language,  ending  not  infrequently  in  a  falling  fit  or  a  lapse 
into  half-consciousness,  from  thousands  of  native  Christians 
during  the  revival  of  1906-1907.  The  sins  which  were  con- 
fessed to  have  been  committed  since  their  profession  of 
Christianity,  were  in  the  main  these  same  characteristic  vices 
of  the  Korean  people.  They  included  not  only  pride,  jeal- 
ousy, and  hatred,  but  habitual  lying,  cheating,  stealing,  and 
acts  of  impurity. 

It  is,  then,  no  cause  for  surprise  that  a  recent  writer1  affirms: 
"If  it  seems  a  hopeless  task  to  lift  the  Chinaman  out  of  his 
groove,  it  is  a  hundred  times  more  difficult  to  change  the 
habits  of  a  Korean.  .  .  .  The  Korean  has  absolutely  nothing 
to  recommend  him  save  his  good  nature.  He  is  a  standing 
warning  to  those  who  oppose  progress.  Some  one  has  said 
that  the  answer  to  Confucianism  is  China;  but  the  best  and 
most  completely  damning  answer  is  Korea." 

Can  Korea — such  a  people,  with  such  rulers — be  reformed 
and  redeemed?  Can  her  rulers  be  made  to  rule  at  least  in 
some  semblance  of  righteousness,  as  preparatory  to  its  more 
perfect  and  substantial  form  ?  Can  the  people  learn  to  prize 

1  Whigham,  Manchuria  and  Korea,  p.  185. 


RULERS   AND   PEOPLE  297 

order,  to  obey  law,  and  to  respect  human  rights  ?  Probably, 
yes;  but  certainly  never  without  help  from  the  outside. 
And  this  help  must  be  something  more  than  the  missionary 
can  give.  It  must  lay  foundations  of  industrial,  judicial,  and 
governmental  reform:  it  must  also  enforce  them  Such 
political  disease  does  not,  if  left  alone,  perfect  its  own  cure. 
The  knife  of  the  surgeon  is  first  of  all  needed;  the  tonic  of 
the  physician  and  the  nourishment  of  good  food  and  the 
bracing  of  a  purer  air  come  afterward.  We  cannot,  there- 
fore, agree  with  the  small  body  of  Christian  workmen — now, 
happily,  a  minority — who  try  to  believe  that  the  needed 
redemption  of  Korea  could  be  effected  by  their  unaided 
forces.  A  union  of  law,  enforced  by  police  and  military,  with 
the  spiritual  influences  of  education  and  religion,  is  alone 
available  in  so  desperate  a  case  as  that  of  Korea  to-day. 
It  is  to  the  task  of  a  political  reformation  and  education  for 
both  rulers  and  people  in  Korea  that  Japan  stands  com- 
mitted before  the  world  at  the  present  time.  As  represented 
by  the  Marquis  Ito,  she  has  undertaken  this  task  with  a  good 
conscience  and  with  a  reasonable  amount  of  hope.  Among 
the  administrative  reforms  in  Korea1  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant is  the  "Purification  of  the  Imperial  Court."  This 
"singular  operation  the  Resident- General  caused  to  be 
resolutely  carried  out  in  July,  1906."  At  that  time  "men 
and  women  of  uncertain  origin  and  questionable  character 
.  .  .  had,  in  a  considerable  number,  come  to  find  their  way 
into  the  royal  palace,  until  it  had  become  a  veritable  rendez- 
vous of  adventurers  and  conspirators.  Divining,  fortune- 
telling  and  spirit-incanting  found  favor  there,  and  knaves 
and  villains  plotted  and  intrigued  within  the  very  gates  of  the 
Court,  in  co-operation  with  native  and  foreign  schemers 

1  See  a  pamphlet  bearing  this  title  as  an  "Authorized  Translation  of 
Official  Documents  published  by  the  Resident-General,  in  Seoul, 
January,  1907,"  p.  7. 


298  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

without.  By  cheating  and  chicanery,  they  relieved  the 
Imperial  treasury  of  its  funds,  and  in  their  eagerness  to  fill 
their  pockets  never  stopped  to  think  of  what  dangerous  seeds 
of  disorder  and  rapine  they  were  scattering  broadcast  over 
the  benighted  peninsula." 

It  must  doubtless  be  confessed  that  under  the  ex-Emperor 
the  efforts  of  the  Residency- General  to  effect  the  needed 
reforms  were  successful  only  to  a  limited  extent.  But  with 
his  last  piece  of  intriguing  to  "  relieve  the  Imperial  treasury 
of  its  funds,"  by  sending  a  commission  to  the  Hague  Con- 
ference, "in  co-operation  with  native  and  foreign  schemers," 
the  old  era  came  quickly  to  an  end.  The  history  of  its 
termination  will  be  told  elsewhere;  but  the  fact  has  illumined 
and  strengthened  the  hope  that  Korea,  too,  can  in  time 
produce  men  fit  to  rule  with  some  semblance  of  honesty, 
fidelity,  and  righteousness.  Meantime,  they  must  be  largely 
ruled  from  without. 

How  this  hope  of  industrial  and  political  redemption  may 
be  extended  to  the  people  at  large  and  applied  to  the  different 
important  interests  of  the  nation,  both  in  its  internal  and 
foreign  relations,  will  be  illustrated  in  the  several  following 
chapters.  Now  that  the  Emperor 1  is  publicly  committed 
to  an  extended  policy  of  reform;  that  the  Ministers  are  for 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  Korea  really  a  Cabinet  exer- 
cising some  control;  that  the  Resident-General  has  the 
right  and  the  duty  to  guide  and  to  enforce  all  the  important 

1  During  all  my  visit  in  Korea  it  was  commonly  reported  by  those 
intimate  at  Court  that  the  Crown  Prince  was  an  imbecile  both  in  body 
and  in  mind.  But  in  his  boyhood  he  was  rather  more  than  ordinarily 
bright,  and  his  mother,  the  murdered  Queen,  was  the  most  clever  and 
brilliant  Korean  woman  of  her  time.  It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  since 
his  accession  to  the  throne  and  in  view  of  his  obviously  sensible  way  of 
yielding  to  good  advice  from  others,  in  spite  of  the  evil  influence  of  his 
father,  the  impression  has  been  made  that  he  might  have  been  feigning 
imbecility  in  order  to  escape  plots  to  assassinate  him,  which  were  formed 
in  the  interests  of  a  rival  claimant  to  the  throne. 


RULERS   AND   PEOPLE  299 

measures  necessary  to  achieve  reform;  that  the  foreign  na- 
tions chiefly  interested  have  definitively  recognized  the 
Japanese  Protectorate;  and  that  the  leaders  of  the  foreign 
moral  and  religious  forces  are  so  largely  in  harmony  with 
the  plans  of  Japan; — now  that  all  this  is  matter  of  past 
achievement,  the  prospects  for  the  future  of  Korea  are 
brighter  than  they  have  ever  been  before.  One  may  reason- 
ably hope  that  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  both  rulers  and 
people  will  be  consciously  the  happier  and  more  prosperous, 
because  they  have  been  compelled  by  a  foreign  and  hated 
neighbor  to  submit  to  a  reformation  imposed  from  without. 
That  they  would  ever  have  reformed  themselves  is  not  to  be 
believed  by  those  who  know  intimately  the  mental  and  moral 
history  and  characteristics  of  the  Koreans. 


/ 

/*-^. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

RESOURCES   AND   FINANCE 

THE  resources  of  the  Korean  peninsula  have  never  been 
systematically  developed;  indeed,  until  a  very  recent  date  no 
intelligent  attempt  has  ever  been  made  to  determine  what 
they  actually  are.  The  Korean  Government  has  usually 
been  content  with  such  an  adjustment  of  ''squeezes"  as 
seemed  best  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  times — admin- 
istered according  to  the  temperament  and  interests  of  the 
local  magistracy.  At  intervals,  however,  the  Court  officials 
have  carried  their  more  erratic  and  incalculable  method  of 
extortion  and  of  plundering  the  people  rather  widely  into 
effect.  Then  those  of  their  number  who  chanced  to  be  His 
Majesty's  favorites  of  the  hour  have  enjoyed  most  of  the 
surplus;  the  people  have  submitted  to,  or  savagely  and 
desperately  revolted  against,  the  inevitable;  but  the  country 
at  large  has  continued  poor  at  all  times,  and  has  frequently 
been  devastated  by  famine.  As  to  the  exploiting  of  Korea's 
resources  by  foreign  capital,  the  facts  have  been  quite  uni- 
formly these :  a  combination  of  adventurers  from  abroad  with 
Koreans  who  either  possessed  themselves,  or  through  others 
could  obtain  "influence"  at  Court  has  been  effected;  some- 
times, but  by  no  means  always,  the  Emperor's  privy  purse 
has  profited  temporarily;  but  the  main  part  of  the  proceeds 
has  been  divided  among  the  native  and  foreign  promoters. 
Of  late  years,  some  of  the  "concessions"  have  been  almost, 

or  quite,  given  away  in  the  hope  of  thus  obtaining  foreign  in- 

•300 


RESOURCES  AND   FINANCE  301 

terference  or  sympathy.  In  only  rare  instances  has  the 
national  wealth  been  greatly  increased  in  this  way,  or  even 
the  treasury  of  the  Government  been  made  much  the 
richer. 

It  is  plain,  then,  that  if  the  Japanese  Protectorate  is  to  be 
made  really  effective  for  the  industrial  uplift  and  develop- 
ment of  the  Korean  people,  as  well  as  capable  of  rewarding 
Japan  for  its  expenditure  in  substantial  ways,  the  resources 
of  the  country  must  be  intelligently  explored  and  system- 
atically developed.  Here  is  where  the  work  of  reform  must 
begin.  In  intimate  relations  with  this  work  stands,  of  course, 
the  establishment  of  a  sound  and  stable  currency.  For  the 
financial  condition  of  Korea  up  to  very  recent  times  was  as 
disgraceful  as  its  industrial  condition  was  deplorable.  To 
this  important  task  of  developing  the  resources  of  Korea  and 
reforming  its  finances,  Marquis  Ito,  as  Resident-General, 
and  Mr.  Megata,  as  Financial  Adviser,  have  devoted  them- 
selves with  a  patience,  self-sacrifice,  and  skill,  which  ought 
ultimately  to  overcome  the  tremendous  difficulties  involved. 

"Korea,"  says  the  Seoul  Press,  "is  essentially  an  agricul- 
tural country.  Eighty  per  cent,  of  her  population  till  the 
soil,  and  stinted  as  are  the  returns  which  the  soil  is  will- 
ing to  yield  under  the  present  method  of  cultivation,  the 
produce  from  land  constitutes  at  least  ninety  per  cent,  of 
the  annual  income  of  the  country.  To  improve  the  lot  of 
the  toiling  millions  on  the  farms  is  therefore  to  improve  the 
lot  of  virtually  the  whole  nation.  It  was  in  recognition  of 
this  obvious  fact  that  Marquis  Ito,  in  addressing  the  leading 
editors  of  Tokyo,  in  February,  1906,  previous  to  his  departure 
for  Korea  to  assume  the  duties  of  his  newly  appointed  post  as 
Resident- General,  laid  particular  emphasis  on  the  urgent 
importance  of  introducing  agricultural  improvements  in  this 
country.  This  question  was  consequently  the  very  first  to 
engage  the  serious  attention  of  the  authorities  of  the  Resi- 


302  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

dency- General."1  'The  statistics  for  the  year  ending  De- 
cember 31,  1906,  show  that  out  of  an  amount"  of  taxes  esti- 
mated at  6,422,744  yen,  the  sum  of  5,208,228  yen  was 
apportioned  to  the  land  tax,  and  234,096  yen  to  the  house 
tax.  The  difficulty  of  collecting  the  taxes,  either  through 
the  corruption  of  the  officials,  or  by  reason  of  the  in- 
ability or  inexcusable  and  often  violent  resistance  of  the 
people,  can  be  estimated  by  the  fact  that,  of  the  land  tax 
2,214,823+^^  was  still  "outstanding,"  and  of  the  house 
tax,  68,794+^w.2 

The  institution  of  an  Experimental  Station  and  Agricul- 
tural School  at  Suwon  has  already  been  described  (p.  122  f.). 
But  in  order  to  accomplish  the  needed  development  of  Korea's 
agricultural  resources,  the  peasant  farmers  must  themselves 
be  induced  to  reform  their  methods  of  cultivation.  As  might 
be  expected,  however,  the  Korean  peasant  farmer  is  sus- 
picious of  all  attempts  to  improve  his  wasteful  methods,  is 
extremely  "  conservative "  (a  much-abused  word)  in  his 
habits,  and  slow  to  learn.  Some  good  work  has,  however, 
already  been  done  by  way  of  opening  his  eyes.  The  example 
of  the  Model  Farm,  which  is  limited  to  one  locality,  is  sup- 
plemented by  the  example  of  the  Japanese  farmers  who  are 
settling  in  numerous  localities.  To  take  an  instance:  im- 
proved Japanese  rice  seed  was  distributed  gratis  in  various 
parts  of  the  country.  But  even  then  it  was  necessary  to 
guarantee  the  farmers  against  loss  in  order  to  induce  them 
to  try  the  experiment  of  cultivating  it.  The  result  of  the  ex- 
periment was  most  encouraging.  The  yield  was  in  every 
case  greater  than  that  obtained  from  the  native  seed ;  in  some 
cases  the  gain  in  the  product  being  as  much  as  from  six  to 
ten  to  (3-5  bushels)  per  tan  (J  acre).  Similar  experiments 

1  Issue  of  Saturday,  March  16,  1907. 

2  So  the  report  on  the  "State  of  the  Progress  of  the  Reorganization  of 
the  Finances  of  Korea,  March,  1907." 


RESOURCES  AND   FINANCE  303 

are  now  in  progress  with  the  seed  of  barley  and  wheat,  im- 
ported from  Japan,  America,  and  Europe. 

In  intimate  connection  with  these  plans  for  developing  the 
agricultural  resources  of  Korea  stands  the  project  for  utilizing 
the  unreclaimed  state  lands.  And  surely  here,  at  least,  all 
those  who  have  the  slightest  honest  feeling  of  regard  for  the 
real  interests  of  the  country  ought  to  wish  that  the  people, 
and  not  the  Court,  and  not  the  foreign  promoter,  should  be 
primarily  considered  and  protected.  How  great  are  the 
chances  for  waste,  fraud,  and  unwise  action  in  the  distribu- 
tion of  this  form  of  the  nation's  resources,  no  other  country 
has  had  better  reason  to  know  than  has  the  United  States. 

For  the  purpose  of  "  Utilization  .  of  Unreclaimed  State 
Lands"  a  law  was  prepared  under  the  advice,  and  by  the 
urgency,  of  the  Japanese  Government,  and  promulgated  in 
March  of  1907.  This  law,  including  the  Supplement,  con- 
sists of  seventeen  articles,  according  to  which  all  uncul- 
tivated lands,  marshes  and  dry  beaches  not  constituting 
private  properties,  will  be  included  in  the  category.  On 
application  to  the  Minister  of  Agriculture,  Commerce  and 
Industry,  these  lands  will  be  leased  for  a  period  not  exceeding 
ten  years.  The  Minister  of  Agriculture,  Commerce  and 
Industry  is  authorized  to  sell  or  give  gratis  the  leased  lands 
to  lessees  who  have  successfully  carried  out  the  prescribed 
work  on  them.  For  the  five  years  following  the  year  in 
which  such  a  sale  or  bestowal  has  taken  place,  taxation  on 
these  lands  will  be  at  the  rate  of  one-third  of  the  tax  levied 
on  the  lowest  class  lands  of  the  province  of  which  they  form 
a  part.  The  lessees  will  be  unable  to  sell,  transfer  or  mort- 
gage the  leased  lands  without  permission  of  the  Minister 
above  mentioned.  Charters  for  lands  on  which  the  pre- 
scribed work  has  not  been  started  within  one  year  of  the  date 
of  their  granting  shall  be  cancelled,  also  those  for  lands  on 
which  the  work,  after  commencement,  does  not  make  sum- 


3o4  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

cient  progress — unless  proper  reason  for  that  can  be  shown. 
Any  person  who  utilizes  unreclaimed  state  lands  in  violation 
of  the  present  law  will  be  liable  to  a  fine  of  between  five  and 
two  hundred  yen  inclusive.  In  the  case  of  the  utilization  of 
unreclaimed  state  land  less  than  three  cho  (some  7  acres)  in 
area,  the  present  law  will  not  be  applied  for  the  time  being, 
the  old  custom  in  force  being  adhered  to.  Possessors  of 
charters  for  the  utilization  of  unreclaimed  state  lands  which 
have  been  obtained  before  the  promulgation  of  the  new  law 
and  which  are  still  valid  must  apply  to  the  Minister  of  Agri- 
culture, Commerce  and  Industry  for  their  recognition  within 
three  months  of  the  date  of  enforcement  of  the  present 
law.  When  the  lessees  who  have  obtained  such  recognition 
have  succeeded  in  carrying  out  the  prescribed  work  on  the 
leased  lands,  the  lands  will  be  presented  to  them  by  the 
Government. 

Another  important  part  of  the  development  of  the  agricul- 
tural resources  of  Korea  is  the  introduction  of  wholly  or 
largely  new  products  of  the  land.  This  is,  indeed,  a  more 
truly  "experimental,"  and  in  some  cases  highly  speculative, 
procedure.  There  will  doubtless  be,  as  its  inevitable  ac- 
companiment, a  larger  percentage  of  failures;  there  maybe,  if 
the  experiments  are  not  intelligently  made  and  hedged  about 
with  educational  and  legal  precautions,  financial  losses  which 
the  poverty  of  the  country  can  ill  afford  to  bear.  There  is, 
perhaps,  peculiar  danger  of  this  under  the  dominant  Japan- 
ese influences;  for  Japan  has  herself  not  as  yet,  industrially 
and  financially,  got  her  heel  firmly  on  the  ground.  Experi- 
ments of  various  kinds,  of  a  highly  speculative  character, 
are  still  according  to  the  mind  of  the  nation  at  large.  But 
the  Government  of  Japan  is  meantime  training  its  own 
young  men  to  a  more  thorough  scientific  acquaintance  with 
the  facts  and  laws  which  determine  industrial  prosperity; 
and  under  the  administration  of  the  Residency-General  in 


RESOURCES  AND   FINANCE  305 

Korea  the  Japanese  Government  is  committed  to  the  plan 
of  giving  to  the  Koreans  also  the  fullest  share  in  the  benefits 
of  this  training. 

To  mention  a  single  instance  of  the  class  of  projects  to 
which  reference  has  just  been  made,  we  quote  the  following 
paragraph  from  an  official  paper:1 

The  climate  of  Korea  is  thought  to  be  well  suited  for  cotton 
cultivation.  Whether  through  misjudgment  in  the  choice  of  the 
seed,  or  blunders  in  the  method,  the  experiments  made  in  this 
direction  have,  however,  been  so  far  fruitless  of  satisfactory  re- 
sults. Taking  this  fact  to  heart,  those  Japanese  and  Koreans  in- 
terested in  the  matter,  some  time  ago  formed  "A  Cotton  Cultiva- 
tion Association,"  and  memorialized  the  Korean  Government  of 
their  resolution  to  carry  through  their  aim.  Lending  its  ears  to 
their  memorial,  the  Government  decided  on  a  plan  to  open  a 
cotton  nursery,  to  be  first  sown  with  the  imported,  continental 
seed,  then  to  distribute  among  planters  at  large  the  seed  obtain- 
able from  the  crop;  and  also  to  start  a  cotton-ginning  factory 
with  the  special  object  of  preventing  the  seed  from  being  waste- 
fully  thrown  away.  It  was  then  arranged  for  this  purpose  to  dis- 
burse a  sum  of  100,000  yen,  distributed  over  several  years,  com- 
mencing in  1906.  The  management  of  the  undertaking  was  first 
placed  wholly  in  the  hands  of  the  "Cotton  Cultivation  Association," 
and  the  Resident- General  intrusted  the  supervision  of  the  Associa- 
tion's work  to  the  Residency-General's  Industrial  Model  Farm. 
In  its  turn,  however,  the  Association  asked  the  Farm  to  take  over 
the  entire  business  primarily  placed  in  its  control.  The  request 
being  granted,  the  Farm  opened  a  branch  office  at  Mok-pho  on 
the  1 5th  of  June,  1906,  calling  it  the  "  Kwang-yo  Mohan  jo  Mok- 
pho  Branch."  There  were  selected  ten  sites  for  cotton  beds 
(covering  altogether  51  cho,2  six  tan,  or  about  120  acres,  of  land  in 
Mok-pho);  and  forthwith  commenced  work.  The  site  for  the 
cotton-ginning  factory  was  chosen  in  Mok-pho,  and  its  buildings 
are  now  completed. 

1  Administrative  Reforms  in  Korea,  p.  18. 

2  A  cho  is  nearly  2,\  acresr 


3o6  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Of  the  same  character  as  the  project  for  raising  cotton  in 
Korea,  although  rather  less  experimental,  are  the  plans  for 
increasing  the  product  of  tobacco.  Of  this  Mr.  Megata  says 
in  his  last  report:  "Investigations  are  being  made  of  the 
various  sources  of  wealth,  of  which  tobacco  is  regarded  as 
the  most  promising.  Practical  examination  as  to  the  state 
of  tobacco  manufacture  in  this  country  was  started  in  the 
preceding  years.  Exertion  is  being  made  by  the  Govern- 
ment for  the  extension  of  the  general  demand  for  Korean 
tobacco.  Better  qualities  of  it  were  selected  and  sent  to  the 
Tobacco  Monopoly  Bureau  of  Japan  for  trial  manufacture. 
The  improvement  of  its  planting  and  manufacture  and  of 
the  selection  of  seed  is  being  studied.  For  the  purpose  of 
investigating  the  relation  between  the  climate  and  tobacco- 
planting,  the  survey  of  the  climate  of  the  country  was  com- 
menced; and  the  result  of  the  investigation  is  now  to  be 
taken  into  consideration  for  the  safety  and  progress  of  that 
industry  in  this  country.  Korean  youths  to  engage  in  the 
investigation  of  the  resources  of  national  wealth  are  being 
trained  for  the  task." 

Next  to  agriculture  in  importance  stands  the  development 
of  forestation  in  Korea.  The  Koreans  have  never  given  any 
attention  to  the  art  of  growing  trees  either  for  timber  or  for 
fuel.  The  late  Tai  Won  Kun,  as  one  of  the  ways  adopted  by 
him  for  ruining  the  country  while  building  a  palace  for  his 
son,  ordered  every  owner  of  large,  serviceable  trees  through- 
out the  land  to  cut  them  down  and  transport  them  to  Seoul 
at  his  own  expense.  Day  by  day,  and  hour  by  hour,  the 
Korean  populace,  to  the  number  of  thousands  of  old  men, 
women,  and  boys,  with  hundreds  of  bullocks  and  ponies, 
are  engaged  in  exterminating  the  future  forests  in  order  to 
provide  themselves  with  fuel,  of  which  they  will  not  be 
persuaded  to  make  economical  use,  and  which  they  cannot 
dispense  with  so  long  as  their  present  tastes  and  contrivances 


C 

o 
U 


RESOURCES   AND   FINANCE  307 

for  heating  themselves  and  cooking  their  food  are  not  changed. 
Hence,  all  over  the  more  frequented  parts  of  Korea  the 
hills  and  mountains,  unless  in  comparatively  rare  cases 
they  are  especially  protected,  are  denuded  and  barren. 
This  constant  deforestation  has  its  customary  inevitable 
results.  In  dry  seasons  there  are  those  chronic  water 
famines  which  discourage  the  farmer's  cheerful  industry, 
and  which  encourage  him  to  hatred  of  the  government,  to 
refusal  to  pay  taxes,  and  to  violent  and  murderous  revolt. 
But  when  there  is  abundance  of  rain,  then  follow  inundations, 
almost  as  destructive  to  the  fields  as  are  the  droughts.  Min- 
ing and  all  other  industries  suffer  from  the  same  source. 
Thus,  as  says  the  Report  of  the  Residency- General,  when 
"seen  from  the  economic,  sanitary,  or  political  point  of  view, 
one  of  the  greatest  needs  of  Korea  at  present  is  the  rehabilita- 
tion of  its  forests."  The  task  involved  in  this  matter  of 
industrial  reform  and  development  of  resources  is,  however, 
of  the  most  difficult  order.  The  rights  of  the  people,  not 
only  to  use  as  they  please  their  own  trees,  but  to  plunder 
the  hill  and  mountain  sides  of  their  fuel,  regardless  of 
ownership,  are  firmly  established  by  usage.  In  the  bitter 
weather  of  winter  much  suffering  would  ensue,  and  its 
consequent  political  disturbance,  if  these  customs  were 
suddenly  and  extensively  controlled.  Nevertheless,  model 
forests  have  been  established  and  instruction  in  foresta- 
tion  is  given  to  Korean  youths  in  a  school  founded  for  that 
purpose.  Below  are  given  the  names  of  localities  and  the 
sizes  of  the  model  forests  so  far  established,  with  their 
outlays:1 

"  Koan-ak-san  and  three  other  places  in  the  vicinity  of 
Seoul.  Total  area  2,060  cho.  Outlay,  about  152,000  yen, 
distributed  over  five  years,  commencing  1907. 

"  Tai-syong-san  and  two  other  places  in  the  vicinity  of 

1  See  Administrative  Reforms  in  Korea,  p.  19. 


IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Pyeng-yang.  Total  area  610  cho.  Outlay,  about  63,000 
yen,  distributed  over  five  years,  commencing  1908.  [Nursery 
beds  expected  to  be  opened  in  1907.] 

"  Oa-yong-san  and  one  other  place  in  the  vicinity  of  Taiku. 
Total  area  650  cho.  Outlay,  about  63,000  yen,  distributed 
over  six  years,  commencing  1908.  [Nursery  beds  expected 
to  be  started  in  1907.]" 

The  more  important  resources  of  this  class  are,  however,  the 
existing  forests  along  the  banks  of  the  Yalu  and  Amur  rivers. 
Indeed,  the  desire  to  gain  control  of  this  wealth  of  timber 
was  one  of  the  more  immediate  causes  leading  to  the  Russo- 
Japanese  war;  it  is  still  one  of  the  more  difficult  points  for 
satisfactory  adjustment  on  the  part  of  the  three  nations  chiefly 
concerned.  For  the  development  of  these  resources  an  agree- 
ment between  Japan  and  Korea  was  signed  on  October  19, 
1906,  by  the  Marquis  Ito  and  the  Korean  Prime  Minister, 
the  Minister  of  Finance,  and  the  Minister  of  Agriculture, 
Commerce  and  Industry.  The  text  of  this  agreement  and 
a  brief  introduction,  stating 'its  importance,  is  given  in  Mr. 
Megata's  last  report.1  "The  banks  along  the  Yalu  and 
Amur,"  says  this  report,  "are  rich  in  forests  which  have 
never  been  cut.  Proper  management  of  those  forests  would 
yield  a  considerable  revenue  to  the  treasury;  but  at  the 
same  time  it  would  require  not  a  little  expense.  In  the 
present  condition  of  the  Korean  finances  it  would  not  be 
wise  to  undertake  this  on  the  account  of  Korea  alone,  although 
the  opening  up  of  such  a  source  of  wealth  is  highly  necessary. 
An  agreement  was  concluded  between  the  governments  of 
Japan  and  Korea  in  October  last  to  carry  on  the  forestry 
along  those  banks  on  their  joint  account,  each  government 
investing  600,000  yen.  The  agreement  newly  concluded 
reads  as  follows: 

1  State  of  the  Progress  of  the  Reorganization  of  the  Finances  of  Korea, 
March,  1907,  p.  20. 


RESOURCES  AND   FINANCE  309 

The  Governments  of  Japan  and  Korea,  regarding  the  forests 
in  the  districts  along  the  Yalu  and  Amur  rivers  to  be  the  richest 
source  of  wealth  on  the  Korean  frontier,  hereby  agree  on  the 
terms  mentioned  below  as  to  the  management  of  those  forests: 

Art.  i.  The  forests  in  the  districts  along  the  Yalu  and  Amur 
rivers  shall  be  subject  to  the  joint  management  of  the  Govern- 
ments of  Japan  and  Korea. 

Art.  2.  The  fund  for  the  management  shall  be  1,200,000  yen, 
a  half  of  which  shall  be  invested  by  each  Government. 

Art.  3.  As  to  the  management  of  the  forests  and  its  income 
and  expenditure,  a  special  account  shall  be  created  in  order  to 
make  them  clear. 

The  details  of  the  account  shall  be  notified  to  each  Government 
once  a  year. 

Art.  4.  The  profit  or  loss  of  the  undertaking  shall  be  divided 
between  the  two  Governments  in  proportion  to  the  amounts  of 
their  investments. 

Art.  5.  In  case  necessity  arises  to  increase  the  investment 
stated  in  the  Art.  2,  it  shall  be  done,  on  the  recognition  of  both 
Governments. 

Art.  6.  In  case  necessity  arises  to  enact  detailed  rules  in  order 
to  enforce  the  present  agreement,  it  shall  be  submitted  to  the 
hands  of  commissioners  appointed  by  both  Governments. 

Art.  7.  On  the  progress  of  the  undertaking,  when  necessity 
arises  to  change  its  organization  into  a  company  ,so  as  to  enable 
the  subjects  of  both  the  countries  to  join  in  the  undertaking, 
the  necessary  processes  shall  be  determined  by  an  agreement 
of  both  Governments. 

For  centuries  Korea  has  been  reputed  to  be  rich  in  deposits  - 
of  gold;  and  it  is  a  fact  that  Japan,  by  trading  with  Korea, 
obtained  most  of  this  precious  metal,  which  the  Dutch,  by 
shrewd  management  of  their  relations  in  trade  with  Japan, 
carried  off  to  Holland.  Both  these  Oriental  countries  in 
this  way  contributed  to  the  enrichment  of  a  limited  number 
of  Europeans.  But  the  real  condition  of  the  mining  re- 


310  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

sources  of  the  peninsula  has  never  been  investigated;  even 
the  amount  of  the  annual  product  of  gold  has  never  been 
accurately  ascertained;  and — worst  of  all — there  have  never 
been  any  laws  or  accepted  principles  to  govern  the  mining 
industry.  The  result  of  all  this  ignorance,  confusion  and 
fraud  is  not  difficult  to  conjecture.  "Some  mines,"  says 
the  official  report,  "  are  under  the  direct  control  of  the  Minister 
of  Agriculture,  Commerce  and  Industry;  with  others  the 
granting  of  a  concession  rests  with  the  Chief  of  the  Mining 
Bureau;  with  others  again,  the  subordinate  officials  on  the 
spot  have  it  in  their  power  to  allow  or  disallow  their  working; 
and  to  make  confusion  worse  confounded,  there  are  even 
mines  operated  under  patents  secretly  granted  by  the  Em- 
peror without  consulting  the  Cabinet.  This  chaotic  state 
of  things  is  bad  enough,  but  it  does  not  stop  here.  For  in 
some  cases  the  concessions  granted  are  cancelled  without 
compensation;  while  in  other  cases,  one  and  the  same  mining 
district  has  been  leased  to  several  persons  one  after  another 
until  it  has  become  utterly  impossible  to  tell  which  is  the 
rightful  concessionaire.  Then,  again,  there  are  cases  in 
which  the  Departments  of  Agriculture,  Commerce  and 
Industry,  of  Finance,  and  of  the  Imperial  Household, 
severally  and  independently,  have  levied  mining  taxes  to 
suit  their  own  convenience;  while  in  others,  the  provincial 
authorities  quite  arbitrarily  collect  imposts.  In  the  midst 
of  this  indescribable  confusion,  the  cunning  and  unscrupulous 
have  not  been  slow  to  make  the  most  of  the  situation,  by 
having  recourse  to  bribery,  instigation,  intimidation,  and 
other  unlawful  schemes,  until  vast  tracts  of  mining  lands 
have  come  under  their  control."1 

To  remedy,  as  far  as  possible,  these  evils  and  to  limit  their 
continuance  into  the  future,  a  General  Mining  Law  was 
proclaimed  on  July  12,  1906,  and  a  Placer  Mining  Law  on 

1  Administrative  Reforms  in  Korea,  p.  15. 


RESOURCES  AND   FINANCE  311 

the  28th  of  the  same  month.  Both  these  laws'  were  ac- 
companied by  the  enactment  of  detailed  rules.  The  principal 
features  of  these  laws  provided  that  mines,  whose  ownership 
could  not  be  definitely  ascertained,  should  revert  to  the  state; 
that  the  limits  of  mining  concessions  should  be  definitely 
prescribed ;  that  mining  rights  which  could  be  established  as 
legally  gained  should  be  legally  protected;  that  the  taxes 
on  mining  properties  should  be  unified;  and  that  priority  of 
application,  in  cases  of  competing  concessions,  should,  until 
examination  could  be  made,  stop  the  granting  to  others  of  the 
same  concession  in  an  arbitrary  way.  In  the  effort  to  put  into 
effective  operation  these  legal  enactments  it  was  necessary 
to  call  upon  the  Korean  authorities  to  promulgate  a  list  of 
the  mines  belonging  to  the  Imperial  Household,  and  also  a 
list  of  such  Crown  mines  as  the  Household  might  intend 
to  work  for  itself.  But  the  Korean  authorities,  either  from 
ignorance,  sloth,  or  other  even  less  creditable  reasons,  did  not 
make  haste  to  prepare  such  a  list.  Meantime,  all  mining 
rights  were,  legally  considered,  in  abeyance.  It  was  only 
after  repeated  and  urgent  remonstrances  from  the  Resident- 
General,  and  as  late  as  November  17,  1906,  that  the  required 
list  was  promulgated.  It  then  appeared  that  the  Imperial 
Household  not  only  laid  claim  to  mines  claimed  by  Japanese, 
but  also  by  American  and  European  concessionaires. 

The  falsity  of  the  statement,  so  repeatedly  made  abroad,  that 
the  Koreans  are  being  robbed  by  Japanese,  to  the  detriment 
of  the  interests  of  other  foreigners,  under  the  protection  of 
the  Japanese  Government  in  Korea,  is  made  obvious  by  the 
following,  among  other  facts.  Had  the  applicants  to  these 
contested  claims  been  only  Japanese  or  Koreans,  they  would 
have  been  required  to  survey  the  properties  and  make  out 
maps  at  their  own  expense;  but  in  deference  to  the  interests 
of  the  American  and  European  claimants  the  survey  was 
made  by  experts  at  the  expense  of  the  state.  And  while  only 


312  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

twenty  per  cent,  of  the  200  applications  made  by  Japanese 
were  granted,  "virtually  all  the  applications  made  by  Amer- 
icans and  Europeans  were  granted." 

Besides  gold,  which  is  found  especially  in  the  form  of  gold- 
dust,  there  are  in  Korea  silver,  copper,  graphite,  and  coal. 
The  coal  is  not  good  for  steaming  purposes,  nor  fitted  for 
export;  but  when  made,  by  mixing  it  with  earth,  into  bricks 
or  balls,  it  is  valuable  as  fuel  for  those  who  can  afford  its  use. 
The  total  annual  value  of  these  mineral  products,  for  reasons 
already  explained,  cannot  be  accurately  ascertained.  Hith- 
erto-much of  the  gold  has  been  smuggled  out  of  the  country 
in  order  to  escape  the  export  and  other  taxes.  It  is  calculated, 
however,  by  the  Residency- General  that  in  the  aggregate 
these  products  do  not  fall  below  6,000,000  yen. 

We  shall  not  attempt  to  speak  in  detail  of  the  other  natural 
resources  of  Korea,  of  its  fisheries,  or  its  sericulture,  or  its 
raising  of  fruit.  But  all  these  have  been  in  the  past  left  in  a 
lamentable  condition  of  ignorance  and  disorder;  and  all 
of  these  are  to  be  made  objects  of  attention,  with  the  purpose 
of  reform,  by  the  Korean  Government  under  the  Japanese 
Protectorate. 

.  What  has  been  shown  to  be  true  of  the  natural  resources  of 
Korea,  in  soil,  forests,  mines,  and  other  products,  is  true  of  its 
j  manufacturing  industries.  Early  in  her  history  Korea 
attained  a  considerable  development  in  the  arts  of  weaving, 
pottery,  paper-making,  metal-casting,  and  the  dressing  of 
skins.  In  several  instances  Japan  borrowed  her  models 
from  Korea  in  all  these  lines  of  the  industrial  arts.  But 
to-day  there  is  absolutely  nothing  that  a  foreign  traveller 
would  covet  to  take  away  from  Korea  except,  perhaps,  a 
Korean  brass-bound  chest  or  a  set  of  its  rude  brass  utensils 
for  holding  food.  The  founding  of  an  Industrial  Training 
Institute  in  the  spring  of  1907,  and  a  statement  of  what  it 
proposes  to  try  to  accomplish  for  the  revival  and  development 


RESOURCES  AND   FINANCE  313 

of  Korean  industrial  arts,  have  been  referred  to  in  an  earlier 
chapter  (p.  i28f.).  Its  practical  results  must  be  awaited  with 
patience;  but  now  that  the  control  of  the  Resident- General 
over  internal  affairs  in  Korea  is  increased  by  the  Convention 
of  July,  1907,  we  may  reasonably  anticipate  favorable  results 
in  due  time. 

The  matter  of  the  Customs  stands  midway  between  the 
development  of  the  natural  resources  and  the  control  of 
finance;  it  therefore  concerns  both  the  topics  which  are  being 
briefly  treated  in  this  chapter.  The  following  quotation 
from  the  last  report  of  the  Financial  Adviser  to  the  Korean 
Government  gives  all  the  information  necessary  to  our 
purpose  upon  this  point: 

On  the  conclusion  of  the  Russo-Japanese  war,  trade  on  the  X 
Yalu  River  became  suddenly  prosperous.  It  is  a  well-known 
fact  that  the  districts  along  the  river  are  rich  in  various  sources 
of  wealth,  the  opening  up  of  which  depends  greatly  upon  the 
facility  of  transportation,  as  well  as  the  prosperity  of  trade  in 
those  districts.  While  making  arrangements  for  the  convenience 
of  traders  at  large,  the  prevention  of  illegal  traders,  as  smugglers, 
is  being  carried  out  more  strictly  than  ever  before;  and  a  healthy 
development  of  the  trade  is  thus  aimed  at.  On  the  seventh  of 
June,  a  branch  office  of  the  Chemulpo  Customs  was  established  in 
Shin-Wiju.  On  the  third  of  August  last,  a  Customs  Agency  of 
this  branch  office  was  commenced  at  Yong-am-po,  and  an  Inspec- 
tion Station  at  Wiju.  On  the  first  of  October  last  the  Chin- 
nam-po  Branch  Office  of  the  Chemulpo  Customs  was  promoted  to 
an  independent  office,  and  the  above-mentioned  branch  offices, 
agency,  and  station  were  transferred  to  its  jurisdiction. 

The  increase  of  trade  after  the  Russo-Japanese  war  was  not 
limited  to  the  banks  of  the  Yalu  River.  A  similar  increase  was 
also  shown  in  Northern  Korea,  and  a  sufficient  equipment  to 
meet  the  customs  demands  of  this  increase  was  lacking.  As  a 
means  of  meeting  the  present  requirements,  the  reconstruction  of 
the  Song-chin  Customs  Godown,  which  had  been  destroyed  by 


3 14  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

fire  during  the  war,  was  commenced  in  June  last,  and  completed 
in  the  following  October.  In  September  last,  the  construction  of 
the  Customs  Wharf  at  Song-chin  was  commenced  and  completed 
in  November.  The  Wonsan  Customs  had  not  been  provided  with 
sufficient  sheds,  and  consequently  damage  to  the  goods  was  an 
affair  of  frequent  occurrence.  Sheds  were  newly  built  there  in 
December  last.  Steam  launches  were  provided  in  the  Customs 
of  Chemulpo,  Fusan,  Wonsan,  Chinnam-po  and  Mokpo,  for 
purposes  of  inspection. 

Though  Japanese  have  now  been  appointed  as  Commissioners 
at  Chemulpo  and  Fusan,  the  customs  business  is  being  managed 
in  essentially  the  same  way  as  when  those  offices  were  being  held 
by  Europeans,  but  not  without  some  changes.  From  the  first  of 
September  last,  the  institution  of  new  customs  regulations  was 
undertaken.  In  October  the  service  rules  for  customs  officials 
were  issued,  and  uniforms  were  prescribed  for  officials  of  the  out- 
door service.  In  November  the  jurisdiction  of  each  customs  office 
was  clearly  defined.  Uniformity  of  taxes  was  arranged.  The 
work  was  divided  into  several  departments  and  sections.  Various 
procedures  in  the  collection  of  customs  were  altered.  The  new 
arrangements  are  intended  both  to  regulate  and  to  expedite  the 
work  of  customs;  but  the  before-mentioned  concern  matters  of 
internal  administration  only.  As  to  the  reform  of  more  funda- 
mental matters,  this  must  be  undertaken  in  connection  with  the 
reconstruction  of  harbors,  customs,  accommodations  on  land,  and 
the  building  of  lighthouses.  The  Customs  Maritime  Works  De- 
partment has  been  organized  for  this  purpose — the  first  stage  of 
the  work  to  be  concluded  in  1911.  As  the  port  regulations  now 
in  force  do  not  fit  the  present  conditions  in  each  port,  alterations 
are  now  being  planned.  In  February  last  the  method  of  quaran- 
tine inspection  was  altered.  The  accounts  of  the  Korean  Cus- 
toms Department  have  hitherto  been  separate  from  the  Korean 
Government  accounts — the  revenue  and  expenditure  of  the  former 
not  being  entered  in  the  annual  budget.  [On  the  last  item  the 
Report  of  the  Residency-General  upon  Administrative  Reforms 
remarks  that  the  impropriety  of  this  omission  is  obvious.]  They 
are,  however,  entered  in  the  budget  of  1907  for  the  first  time. 


RESOURCES  AND   FINANCE  315 

The  development  of  the  resources  of  any  country  is,  of 
course,  intimately  dependent  upon  the  soundness  and  wis- 
dom of  its  financial  policy  and  administration.  This  is  in- 
creasingly so  under  modern  conditions  in  countries  where 
international  relations  are  of  the  greatest  importance.  Noth- 
ing could  have  been  worse  than  the  chaotic  condition  of 
the  Korean  finances  when  Mr.  Megata,  in  conformity  with 
the  Convention  signed  between  Japan  and  Korea  on  the  22d 
of  August,  1905,  was  appointed  Financial  Adviser  to  the 
Korean  Government  by  the  Imperial  Japanese  Govern- 
ment.1 Mr.  Hulbert,  who  afterward  became  the  most  un- 
sparing critic  of  Mr.  Megata's  policy,  himself  wrote  in  the 
Korean  Review,  in  1903:  "It  is  encouraging  to  note  that 
every  part  of  the  Korean  Executive  has  come  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  something  has  got  to  be  done  to  put  Korea's  money 
system  on  a  more  secure  foundation."  It  was,  however, 
largely  this  same  "Korean  Executive"  which  had  been 
chiefly  responsible  for  the  deterioration  of  the  currency  and 
for  the  entire  confusion  in  the  financial  condition  of  the 
country.  On  this  matter  of  the  deterioration  of  the  currency, 
the  Financial  Adviser  says  in  one  of  his  Reports:2  "The 
currency  of  Korea,  though  nominally  on  a  silver  basis,  has 
hitherto  in  reality  possessed  no  standard,  and  only  cash  and 
nickel  coins  have  been  in  circulation.  Before  the  com- 
mencement of  the  reorganization  of  the  currency,  the  market 
rate  of  the  nickel  coins  fell  to  250  won  for  100  yen  in  gold 
(Japanese  currency);  while  that  of  the  cash  fluctuated  from 
100  per  cent,  to  60  per  cent,  premium.  All  cash  pass  at  a 
uniform  rate  in  spite  of  their  different  sizes  and  weights. 
The  market  rate  varies  according  to  the  condition  of  supply 

1  It  should  be  noted  in  this  connection  that  this  appointment  is  one 
of  the  very  few  which,  like  that  of. the  Resident-General,  proceed 
directly  from  the  Emperor  of  Japan  himself. 

2  Summary  of  the  Financial  Affairs  of  Korea,  p.  5. 


3i6  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

and  demand.  When  the  market  rate  is  equivalent  to  one 
rin  (i-iooo  yen  Japanese  currency)  it  is  called  par;  when  it 
is  2  rin,  the  cash  is  at  100  per  cent,  premium.  Cash  are  pre- 
ferred in  some  provinces,  nickel  coins  in  other  provinces. 
Since  the  commencement  of  the  withdrawal  of  the  old  nickel 
coins  in  June,  1905,  the  market  rate  has  gradually  risen,  and 
at  present  it  is  steady  at  the  normal  rate  of  200  won  to  100 
yen.  (According  to  the  Currency  Law,  the  face  value  of 
the  old  nickel  coin  is  2.5  sen,  its  intrinsic  value  being  2  sen)."  l 
Nor  was  the  chaotic  state  of  the  currency  the  only  evil  con- 
nected with  its  use.  The  cash,  while  having  the  preference 
over  the  nickel  coins  because  its  intrinsic  value  was  more 
nearly  equal  to  its  market  value,  and  it  was  therefore  more 
stable,  was  intolerably  inconvenient  for  monetary  transac- 
tions of  any  considerable  size.  Its  value  was  so  low  as  to 
make  it  not  worth  the  risk  of  counterfeiting.  But  even  the 
traveller  for  a  few  weeks  in  the  country  could  pay  his  expenses 
only  by  taking  along  several  mule-loads  of  these  petty  coins. 
The  nickels,  on  the  contrary,  were  exceedingly  unstable,  and 
were  subject,  to  wholesale  debasement  and  counterfeiting. 
It  is  true,  as  Mr.  Hulbert  charges,  that  "  counterfeit  nickels 
were  made  largely  by  the  Japanese  in  Osaka";  but  it  is  also 
true  that  these  coins  were  counterfeited  in  large  quantities  by 
the  Chinese,  and  that  the  worst  offenders  were  the  Koreans 
themselves.  Here,  as  everywhere  during  the  contempo- 
raneous history  of  Korean  affairs,  it  was  the  "  Korean  Execu- 
tive "  which  was  chiefly  to  blame.  In  some  cases  the  Govern- 
ment loaned  its  coining  machine  for  a  money  consideration; 
in  others,  the  "promoter  of  the  minting  industry"  was 
obliged  to  content  himself  with  a  manufacturing  outfit  ob- 
tained on  private  account.  In  this  connection  the  author 

1  In  interpreting  this  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  Japanese  sen 
is  equal  in  value  to  one-half  a  cent  in  American  gold,  or  about  one 
farthing  in  English  currency.  100  sen=i  yen,  and  1,000  rin=i  yen. 


RESOURCES  AND   FINANCE  317 

calls  to  mind  an  astonishing  but  authentic  story  of  how'a 
boy,  deputed  by  his  father  to  return  to  a  benevolent  associa- 
tion in  Seoul  a  sum  of  money  which  had  been  originally 
stolen  by  the  trusted  agent  of  this  association  and  loaned  to 
the  father,  stole  the  money  again  and  spent  it  in  the  purchase 
of  a  counterfeiting  machine.  It  should  be  added  that  these 
remarkable  transactions  were  of  recent  occurrence. 

Japanese  counterfeiters  were  arrested,  tried  and  punished, 
after  the  passage  of  a  law  by  the  Diet  making  it  an  offence  to 
counterfeit  foreign  money  in  Japan,  with  the  same  penalties 
as  those  applied  to  cases  of  counterfeiting  Japanese  money.1 
Even  before  that,  administrative  measures  were  taken  by  the 
Japanese  to  break  up  the  illicit  industry.  So  far  as  Korean 
offenders  were  concerned,  nothing  was  done  to  punish  the 
chief  culprits.  In  fact,  the  Korean  Government  was  hardly 
in  a  position  to  do  anything,  having  itself  made  large  over- 
issues of  nickels,  and  even  surreptitiously  farmed  out  the 
right  to  private  individuals  to  coin  them.  This  right  was 
exercised,  among  others,  by  a  relative  of  the  Emperor. 
Doubtless  this  official  malfeasance  is  what  Mr.  Hulbert  al- 
ludes to  when  he  speaks  of  the  "  prime  movers  in  the  deteriora- 
tion of  the  currency." 

The  history  of  this  nickel  coinage  is  another  illustration  of 

1  "There  had  been,"  says  Mr.  D.  W.  Stevens,  "some  criticism  be- 
cause such  a  law  was  considered  necessary;  and  Japanese  legal  pro- 
cedure was  accused  of  being  defective,  on  this  account,  by  certain 
foreign  critics.  But  in  the  late  seventies  the  British  Court  at  Yoko- 
hama released  a  man  who  had  been  detected  counterfeiting  Japanese 
money,  on  the  ground  that  there  was  no  British  law  under  which  to 
punish  him,  and  that  Japanese  law  against  counterfeiting  did  not  apply 
to  British  subjects  in  Japan.  And  the  highest  British  courts  have  held 
that  a  contract  to  smuggle  goods  into  a  foreign  country  is  a  valid  con- 
tract as  between  British  subjects  in  Great  Britain."  The  entire  matter 
is  dwelt  upon  at  such  length  because  it  illustrates  so  well  the  inability  of 
the  Koreans  for  "independent"  management  of  their  own  internal 
affairs,  and  also  the  animus  and  propriety  of  much  of  the  anti- Japanese 
criticism, 


3i8  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

the  opera  bouffe  methods  which  characterize  Korean  public 
administration.  The  discovery  of  the  potentialities  of  fiat 
currency  probably  came  in  the  nature  of  a  revelation  to 
Korean  officialdom.  It  opened  vistas  of  profit  never  before 
dreamed  of;  all  that  was  needed  was  the  raw  material  and  a 
machine.  Finally  the  industry  ceased  to  be  as  remunerative 
as  at  first;  and  the  "Korean  Executive,"  all  branches 
of  it,  discovered  (in  1903)  that,  sooner  or  later,  even  a  nickel 
coinage  will  find  its  true  level. 

Such,  briefly  described,  was  the  deplorable  state  of  the 
financial  affairs  of  Korea  when  Mr.  Megata's  administration 
began.  This  was  only  a  brief  time  ago,  or  in  1905.  What 
has  already  been  accomplished  for  the  reform  of  the  Ko- 
rean finances  may  be  summarized  as  follows.1  The  first 
step  taken  was  the  adoption  of  the  gold  standard,  followed 
by  the  promulgation  of  a  law  strictly  prohibiting  the  private 
minting  of  nickel  coins,  and  the  endeavor  to  recall  this  cur- 
rency already  in  circulation.  Measures  were  also  taken  to 
popularize  the  circulation  of  notes  issued  by  the  Dai  Ichi 
Ginko  (First  Bank),  and  to  enlarge  the  sphere  of  circulation 
for  the  coins  newly  introduced.  "The  organ  for  the  circula- 
tion of  money  and  the  collection  of  the  taxes  having  been 
now  fairly  well  provided,  efforts  will  be  made  to  restrict  and 
ultimately  prohibit  the  circulation  of  the  fractional  cash  now 
in  use  in  the  three  southern  provinces,  by  encouraging  the 
employment  of  notes  in  accordance  with  the  law  regulating 
currency."  "As  regards  the  bank-notes  issued  by  the 
General  Office  of  the  First  Bank  in  Korea,  the  Korean  Gov- 
ernment has  officially  sanctioned  their  compulsory  circula- 
tion. But,  it  being  deemed  desirable  to  have  said  Govern- 
ment grow  firm  and  content  in  the  idea  that  the  notes  are  the 
national  currency,  a  contract  was  concluded  in  July,  last 

1  The  quotations  are  from  the  pamphlet,  Administrative  Reforms  in 
Korea,  p.  n  /. 


RESOURCES  AND   FINANCE  319 

year  (1906),  between  the  Government  and  the  First  Bank, 
providing  that  the  pattern  and  denomination  of  the  notes 
shall  be  subject  to  the  approval  of  the.  Resident- General  and 
the  Korean  Minister  of  Finance;  that  the  amount  of  their 
issue  and  of  the  reserve  be  reported  every  week  to  the  said 
Minister;  that  the  Korean  Government  have  the  power  to 
institute  inquiries  and  examinations  with  respect  to  the 
issue  of  notes;  and  that  the  bank  be  placed  under  reasonable 
obligations  in  return  for  the  exclusive  privilege  of  issuing 
notes." 

The  General  Office  of  the  First  Bank  at  Seoul  has  now 
been  made  the  Central  Treasury  of  the  Government  of 
Korea;  and  therefore  receives  on  deposit  and  pays  out  the 
exchequer  funds.  It  is  under  the  competent  management 
of  Mr.  Ichihara,  who,  after  several  years  of  study  of  eco- 
nomics and  finance  in  the  United  States,  became  prominent 
as  a  banker  in  Japan,  and  was  subsequently  chosen  Mayor 
of  Yokohama.  Its  branches  and  sub-branches  throughout 
Korea  are  assisted  by  the  postal  organs  in  handling  the 
exchequer  funds.  "Notes  Associations,"  which  undertake 
to  popularize  the  circulation  of  reliable  negotiable  bills,  and 
Agricultural  and  Industrial  Banks,  established  at  different 
centres  for  the  accommodation  of  long  loans,  are  also  in 
part  the  results  of  Mr.  Megata's  reform  of  the  Korean 
finances.  The  most  important,  and  doubtless  most  difficult, 
thing  remaining  to  be  done  is  the  purifying  and  reorganization 
of  the  revenue  system.  For,  as  has  already  been  repeatedly 
indicated,  nothing  can  exceed  the  measure  of  ignorance, 
extortion  and  corruption,  which  has  hitherto  characterized 
the  conduct  of  the  provincial  administrative  organs. 

Perhaps  the  most  difficult  problem  with  which  the  newly 
appointed  Financial  Adviser  to  the  Korean  Government  had 
to  cope  was  the  retirement  of  the  nickel  currency.  The  solu- 
tion of  this  problem  was  indeed  difficult,  but  it  was  abso- 


320  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

lutely  indispensable  to  the  very  beginning  of  any  systematic 
reform.  The  distinction  between  spurious  and  genuine 
coins  was  scarcely  possible;  the  distinction  between  those 
counterfeited  without,  and  those  counterfeited  with,  the 
sanction  of  the  " Korean  Executive"  was  impossible.  The 
amount  of  both  kinds  was  hard  to  determine.  According  to 
Mr.  Megata's  calculation,  the  old  nickel  coins  minted  by 
the  Government  amounted  in  value  to  17,000,000  won; 
while  the  spurious,  but  not  debased,  coins  in  circulation  may 
have  amounted  to  some  4,000,000  won.1  His  plan  involved 
both  the  exchange  of  the  old  nickel  coins  for  new  coins  of  a 
standard  value  and  issued  under  proper  safeguards  and  re- 
strictions, in  accordance  with  the  newly  inaugurated  gold 
basis;  and  also  the  reduction  of  the  cash  by  re-minting  such 
coins  as  were  deficient  and  returning  the  balance  to  circula- 
tion. From  October,  1905,  the  coinage  of  silver  ten-sen 
pieces  and  of  bronze  one-sen  and  one-half  -sen  pieces  was 
begun.  By  these  it  was  intended  to  displace  the  circulation 
of  the  old  nickel  coins.  The  coins  tendered  for  exchange 
were  classified  into  three  classes:  Class  A — coins  exchanged 
at  the  rate  of  2  old  for  i  new  coin;  Class  B — coins  exchanged 
at  the  rate  of  5  old  for  i  new  coin;  and  Class  C — counterfeit 
and  debased  coins,  defaced  and  returned  to  the  applicants. 
By  these  means  there  was  withdrawn  from  circulation  of  old 
coins,  between  July  i  and  October  15,  1905,  in  Korean 
dollars  to  the  amount  of  10,722,162,.  of  which,  however, 
1,411,184  were  received  in  payment  of  taxes. 

So  radical  a  change  in  the  currency  of  the  country  could 
not  be  accomplished  without  working  hardship  in  certain 
directions.  But  those  who  have  carefully  examined  the 
existing  condition  of  Korean  finances  and  the  working  in 
detail  of  the  plans  for  reform  find  reason  for 'praising  the 
prudence  and  skill  of  Mr.  Megata's  way  of  accomplishing  a 

1  See  Summary  of  the  Financial  Affairs  of  Korea,  p.  5. 


RESOURCES  AND   FINANCE  321 

most  difficult  task.  The  details  are  to  be  found,  carefully 
worked  out  and  tabulated,  in  the  official  reports.  It  is  enough 
for  us  to  recognize  the  enormous  change  for  the  better  which 
has  taken  place  during  the  past  two  years  in  the  financial 
condition  of  the  peninsula,  and  in  all  the  foreign  financial 
relations  to  Korean  business  affairs;  and,  at  the  same  time, 
to  reply  with  a  brief,  categorical  denial  to  certain  criticisms 
from  unfriendly  and  prejudiced  sources.  As  to  the  latter 
point,  "it  is  untrue,"  says  a  trustworthy  informant,  "that 
any  Korean  capitalists  came  forward  with  a  bona  fide  offer  of 
a  loan  at  a  lower  rate  of  interest  than  that  procured  by  the 
Japanese  Government  for  the  retirement  of  the  old  nickel 
coinage.  The  only  plan  of  the  kind  which  was  ever  mooted 
had  in  view  the  borrowing  of  foreign  capital,  not  Japanese. 
A  great  deal  was  said,  after  the  fact,  about  the  readiness  of 
these  capitalists  to  intervene;  but  Mr.  Megata  was  never 
given  an  opportunity  to  avail  himself  of  their  alleged  willing- 
ness to  advance  the  funds  until  it  was  too  late.  Mr.  Me- 
gata's  first  object  was,  of  course,  to  obtain  the  money  as 
cheaply  as  possible.  It  was  not  until  he  had  looked  the 
situation  over  very  carefully,  and  had  made  enquiries  con- 
cerning the  possibility  of  making  better  arrangements  with 
foreign  capitalists  that  he  finally  concluded  the  arrangement 
with  the  Dai  Ichi  Ginko." 

Another  example  of  the  same  species  of  criticism  is  shown 
in  connection  with  the  story  that  the  Korean  Emperor  desired 
to  advance  to  the  merchants  of  Seoul  300,000  yen  to  relieve 
the  distress  over  the  increased  stringency  in  the  money  market, 
which  was,  of  course,  one  of  the  first  results  of  the  conversion 
of  the  nickel-coin  currency.  "For  this  offer,"  the  authority 
just  quoted  says,  "the  underlying  motive  was  undoubtedly 
political.  There  was  distress  among  the  merchants  of  Seoul, 
but  there  was  no  necessity  for  the  Emperor's  direct  inter- 
vention. If,  indeed,  the  distress  had  been  as  great  as  was 


322  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

represented  at  the  time,  the  sum  offered,  300,000  yen,  was  not 
sufficient  to  afford  permanent  relief.  The  offer  of  the  money 
was  merely  another  instance  of  Korean  methods.  The 
process  of  reasoning  was  simple:  Financial  distress  existed, 
due  to  the  action  of  the  Japanese  Financial  Adviser;  His 
Majesty  generously  came  to  the  assistance  of  his  embarrassed 
subjects;  hence  gratitude  to  His  Majesty  and  humiliation 
for  the  discredited  Japanese  Adviser.  Mr.  Megata  did 
no  more  than  to  treat  the  matter  as  its  childish  nature  war- 
ranted. It  should  be  added  that,  in  addition  to  the  genuine 
distress  caused  by  the  stringency  of  the  money  market,  there 
was  a  patent  attempt  to  heighten  the  resultant  agitation  for 
political  effect.  This  was  met  by  offers,  due  to  Mr.  Megata's 
initiative,  to  advance  money  on  easy  terms  in  deserving  cases. 
The  native  capitalists  made  no  move  to  relieve  the  situation 
at  this  supposedly  critical  juncture." 

The  recent  condition  of  the  resources  and  finance  of  Korea 
can  be  discovered  in  the  most  trustworthy  way  possible  under 
existing  circumstances,  only  by  a  critical  study  of  the  detailed 
reports  to  which  reference  has  already  been  made  in  this 
chapter.  The  following  more  important  items  are  taken 
from  the  Report  of  March,  1907.  In  this  report  the  total 
estimated  revenue  for  1907  is  given  at  13,189,336  yen,  which 
is  an  increase  of  5,704,592  yen  over  that  of  1906.  Of  this 
total,  however,  3,624,233  yen  is  extraordinary.  The  total 
estimated  expenditure  for  the  same  year  is  13,963,035  yen, 
which  is  in  excess  of  that  of  the  year  of  1906,  by  the  sum  of 
5,995,647  yen.  The  increase  in  expenditure  is  partly  to 
provide  for  increase  in  salaries — a  necessary  measure  if  the 
amount  of  " squeezes"  is  to  be  reduced  and  a  sufficient 
number  of  competent  and  honest  officials  secured;  but  more 
largely  for  the  reform  of  the  educational  organization,  for 
the  founding  and  support  of  technical  schools,  for  the  exten- 
sion of  engineering  works,  the  building  of  roads,  of  law 


RESOURCES  AND  FINANCE  323 

courts,  and  other  public  buildings,  the  founding  of  hospitals; 
and  for  the  extension  of  the  police  and  judicial  systems. 
As  to  individual  items  it  is  noticeable  that  the  military 
estimates  have  been  reduced  from  2,426,087  yen,  in  1905, 
when  they  were  26  per  cent,  of  the  total  expenditure,  to 
1,522,209  yen,  or  u  per  cent,  of  the  total  expenditure  for  the 
year  1907.  This  sum  has  now  further  been  much  reduced 
by  the  disbanding  of  the  Korean  army,  with  the  exception 
of  a  body  of  palace  guards,  as  a  consequence  of  the  new 
Convention  of  July,  1907. 

One-tenth  of  the  entire  estimated  expenditure — or,  more 
precisely,  1,309,000  yen — is  attributed  to  the  Imperial  House- 
hold. But  even  this  by  no  means  represents  the  cost  to  the 
nation  of  the  Emperor  and  his  Court  under  the  former  occu- 
pant of  the  throne.  For  all  manner  of  irregular,  illicit,  and 
scandalous  ways  of  obtaining  money  for  his  privy  purse  were 
resorted  to  by  the  ruler,  whose  character  and  habits  in  the 
obtaining  and  use  of  money  have  already  been  sufficiently 
described.1  The  trials  which  have  come  upon  the  Financial 
Adviser  of  the  Korean  Government  since  his  appointment, 
through  the  behavior  of  the  so-called  "  Korean  Executive," 
can  scarcely  be  exaggerated.  One  of  the  questions  pending 
when  Mr.  Megata  first  assumed  office  concerned  the  size  of 
the  allowance  for  the  expenses  of  the  Crown  Princess'  funeral. 
The  Emperor's  private  funds  were  at  a  low  ebb  (they  always 
are);  the  national  treasury  was  impoverished  (it  always  had 
been).  Yet  the  Imperial  Treasurer,  an  official  of  the  old- 
time  stamp,  insisted  that  one  million  yen  was  absolutely 
indispensable  for  the  proper  carrying  out  of  the  burial 
ceremony (!).  This  way  of  plundering  the  treasury  of  the 
country,  which  was  considered  especially  legitimate  by  the 
Korean  Court  and  its  parasites,  Mr.  Megata  dealt  with  in 

1  See  the  incidents — which  are  of  a  sort  to  be  almost  indefinitely  mul- 
tiplied— on  page  285  f. 


324 


IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 


that  spirit  of  " philosophical  humor"  which  is  characteristic 
of  him.  He  patiently  pointed  out  that  the  estimated  prices 
of  many  of  the  items  called  for  were  greatly  in  excess  of  their 
market  value.  In  this  manner  he  finally  reduced  the  wily 
claims  of  the  Korean  official  to  the  modest  sum  of  a  half- 
million  yen.  Two  full-dress  rehersals,  which  differed  from 
the  actual  ceremony  only  in  the  circumstance  that  the  coffin 
was  empty  and  no  official  invitations  to  attend  were  issued, 
preceded  the  final  pagent.  On  each  of  these  occasions  the 
long  procession  marched  pompously  through  the  streets, 
which  were  crowded  with  wrangling  lantern-bearers,  chair 
coolies,  and  the  innumerable  other  horde  of  a  low-lived 
Korean  populace,  to  the  dissipation  of  all  the  solemnity  of 
a  death-ceremonial,  but  to  the  delectation  of  the  spectators 
as  well  as  the  participants. 

The  public  debt  of  Korea  in  March,  1907,  is  here  exhibited 
in  tabular  form : 

TABLE  OF  NATIONAL  DEBT 


Name  of  Loan 

Date  of  Issue 

Amount 

Interest 

Term 
Outstanding 

Date  of 
Redemption 

June  1905 

7    % 

Currency  Adjustment  
For  Increased  Circulation  .  . 
New  Enterprises  

1905 
Dec.,  1905 
March,  1906 

3,000,000 
1,500,000 
5,000,000 

6    % 
6    % 
6i% 

6      " 
6 
5      " 

June,     1915 
Dec.,      1912 
March,  1916 

This  debt,  while  insignificant  as  compared  with  that  of 
civilized  nations  generally,  is  by  no  means  so  when  compared 
with  the  poverty  of  Korea.  And  it  will  doubtless  be  largely 
increased  in  the  near  future  by  the  necessity  of  putting  into 
operation  many  imperative  reforms  and  improvements  of  the 
existing  material  condition  of  the  country.  The  possibility, 
however,  of  a  rapid  development  of  the  resources  and  increase 
of  revenue  is  also  great.  To  take  a  single  item:  while  the 
amount  estimated  from  Port  Duties  for  the  year  ending 
December  31,  1906,  was  only  850,000  yen,  the  actual  income 


RESOURCES  AND  FINANCE  325 

was  2,434,118  yen.  Some  reduction  in  the  items  allowed  for 
expenditure  is  also  possible — for  example,  that  of  the  Im- 
perial Household,  and  for  the  Military  (a  reduction  already 
accomplished).  Under  a  just  administration,  with  a  revision 
of  the  system  of  taxation,  the  resources  and  the  revenue  can 
probably  be  doubled  in  a  few  years,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  material  welfare  of  the  people  improved.  With  the 
policy  of  the  present  Resident-General  continued  in  force, 
the  prospect  is  therefore  by  no  means  without  dominant 
elements  of  hope  for  Korea's  future. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

EDUCATION  AND   THE   PUBLIC   JUSTICE 

UNTIL  recently  neither  public  education  nor  public  justice, 
in  the  modern  meaning  of  these  terms,  has  had  any  existence 
in  Korea.  Even  those  who  were  regarded  as  preferred 
candidates  for  government  positions  in  educational  and 
judicial  fields  were  not  really  fitted  for  the  intelligent  and 
faithful  performance  of  their  duties — supposing  (what,  in 
most  cases,  was  not  true)  that  they  really  desired  efficiency 
and  true  success.  For  the  common  people  of  Korea,  indeed 
for  all  except  the  most  highly  privileged  classes,  there  was  no 
opportunity  for  learning  and  no  conception  or  experience  of 
the  fair,  legal  safeguarding  of  human  interests  and  human 
rights.  The  older  educational  methods,  so  far  as  method 
existed  at  all,  were  patterned  after  those  of  China;  but  they 
were  never  so  thorough  or  excellent  of  their  kind  as  were  the 
Chinese.  Civil  service  examinations  were  indeed  required 
for  official  preferment.  These  examinations  were  exceed- 
ingly superficial,  and  were  not  guarded  against  fraud;  so  that 
the  selection  of  successful  candidates  was  too  frequently 
made  on  quite  other  grounds  than  those  of  superior  excellence 
in  passing  the  examinations.  To  this  latter  fact  the  Korean 
stories  of  poor  and  worthy  candidates  who  have  been  unjustly 
deprived  of  the  offices  to  which  they  were  entitled  bear  an 
ample  and  often  dramatically  pathetic  witness.  While,  as 
to  the  almost  total  absence  of  even-handed  justice,  from  the 
central  government  at  the  Court  down  to  the  most  petty  of 
the  local  magistrates,  the  entire  history  of  Korea  is  one  con- 
tinued pitiful  story. 

326 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE  327 

With  regard  to  the  condition  of  the  public  education  as 
late  as  just  previous  to,  and  even  after  the  attempted  re- 
forms of  1894,  we  quote  the  following  description  from  the 
Korean  Review  of  November  of  1904: 

According  to  Korean  custom  and  tradition,  any  man  who 
knows  Chinese  fairly  well  can  become  a  teacher.  There  is  no 
such  thing  as  a  science  of  teaching,  and  the  general  average  of 
instruction  is  wretchedly  poor.  The  teacher  gets  only  his  deserts, 
which  are  extremely  small.  The  traditional  Korean  school- 
teacher, while  receiving  some  small  degree  of  social  considera- 
tion because  of  his  knowledge  of  the  Chinese  characters,  is  looked 
upon  as  more  or  less  of  a  mendicant.  Only  the  poorest  will  en- 
gage in  this  work,  and  they  do  it  on  a  pittance  which  just  keeps 
them  above  the  starvation  line.  It  has  been  ingrained  in  the 
Korean  character  to  reckon  the  profession  of  pedagogy  as  a  mere 
makeshift  which  is  only  better  than  actual  beggary.  If  you  ex- 
amine the  pay-list  even  of  the  Government  schools,  you  will  find 
that  the  ordinary  wage  is  about  thirty  Korean  dollars.  This 
means  about  fifteen  yen  a  month,  and  is  almost  precisely  the 
amount  that  an  ordinary  coolie  receives.  This  wretchedly  low 
estimate  of  the  value  of  a  teacher's  services  debauches  the  whole 
system.  The  men  who  hold  these  positions  are  doing  so  because 
nothing  better  has  turned  up,  and  they  get  their  revenge  for  the  in- 
adequacy of  the  salary  by  shirking  their  work  as  much  as  possible. 

It  would  seem  from  this  account  that  the  contemplated 
reforms  of  the  educational  system,  which  had  been  inaugu- 
rated ten  years  before,  when  the  old-fashioned  civil-service 
examinations  were  abolished,  had*  remained,  as  is  customary 
with  all  reforms  in  Korea  if  not  enforced  from  without, 
merely  matters  of  so  much  paper.  Another  writer1  about 
midway  in  this  decade  gives  a  somewhat  better  account  of 
Korean  educational  affairs  after  the  Chino- Japan  war. 

1  Dr.  Allen,  then  American  Consul-General,  in  a  report  upon  Educa- 
tional Institutions  and  Methods  in  Korea^  1898. 


328  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

The  "present  favorable  aspect  of  education"  at  that  time 
this  writer  attributes  to  the  influence  of  the  war.  It  is  to  be 
noted,  however,  that  the  "favorable  aspect"  covers,  for  the 
most  part,  only  the  special  schools  established  in  Seoul  and 
does  not  regard  the  unimproved  and  still  deplorable  state 
of  the  public  education  in  the  country  at  large.  Stricter 
attention  to  the  extent  of  this  alleged  improvement,  even 
within  the  city  of  Seoul,  shows  how  limited  it  really  was. 
Besides  well-deserved  praise  bestowed  upon  the  few  missionary 
schools,  only  the  governmental  so-called  "Normal  School," 
in  which  30  scholars  were  enrolled,  and  which  was  presided 
over  by  Mr.  Homer  B.  Hulbert,  and  a  school  for  teaching 
English  to  the  sons  of  nobles,  numbering  35  pupils,  are 
given  as  examples.  Inasmuch  as  the  latter  school  had  the 
same  teacher,  and  he  was  justly  complaining  that  his  obliga- 
tion to  teach  the  young  Yang-bans  interfered  with  his  legiti- 
mate work,  the  cause  of  the  public  education  could  not  have 
made  any  considerable  advances  at  this  time.  The  same 
report  speaks  of  a  Japanese  school  maintained  in  Seoul  by 
the  Foreign  Education  Society  of  Japan,  in  the  following 
significant  way:  "It  was  organized  in  April,  1898,  as  a 
token  of  the  sincere  sympathy  for  the  lack  of  a  sound  educa- 
tional basis  in  Korea,  with  the  view  of  giving  a  thorough 
elementary  course  of  instruction  to  Korean  youths,  and  '  thus 
aiming  to  form  a  true  foundation  of  the  undisputed  inde- 
pendence of  that  country.' " 

In  further  proof  of  the  undoubted  fact  that  the  reforms  of 
1894  had  accomplished  little  in  Seoul  itself,  and  almost  noth- 
ing at  all  in  Korea  outside  of  the  capital,  we  may  appeal 
again  to  the  testimony  of  the  writer  in  the  Korean  Review: 
"We  do  not  see,"  says  this  writer,  "how  the  government  can 
be  made  to  realize  the  importance  of  this  work.  When  no 
protest  is  made  against  the  appropriation  of  a  paltry  $60,000 
a  year  for  education  as  compared  with  $4,000,000  for  the 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE     329 

Korean  army,  there  is  little  use  in  expecting  a  change  in  the 
near  future.  The  government  could  do  nothing  better  than 
reverse  these  figures;  but  the  age  of  miracles  is  past." 

"Before  suggesting  a  possible  solution  of  the  question," 
this  writer  goes  on  to  say,  "we  should  note  with  care  what 
is  at  present  being  done  t6  provide  young  men  with  an 
education.  There  are  the  seven  or  eight  primary  schools  in 
Seoul  with  a  possible  attendance  of  forty  boys  each.  This 
means  a  good  deal  less  than  500  boys  in  this  city  of  over 
200,000  people,  including  the  immediate  suburbs.  At  the 
least  estimate  there  ought  to  be  6,000  boys  in  school  between 
the  ages  of  ten  and  sixteen.  Practically  nothing  is  being  done. 
As  for  intermediate  education  there  is  a  Middle  School,  with 
a  corps  of  eight  teachers  and  an  average  attendance  of  about 
thirty  boys.  The  building,  the  apparatus,  and  the  teaching 
staff  would  suffice  for  about  four  hundred  pupils.  There  are 
several  foreign  language  schools,  with  an  attendance  of  any- 
where from  twenty  to  eighty  each,  and  they  are  fairly  success- 
ful. .  .  .  Then  there  are  the  several  private  schools,  almost 
every  one  of  which  is  in  a  languishing  condition.  A  Korean 
will  start  a  private  school  on  the  least  provocation.  It  runs 
a  few  months  and  then  closes,  nobody  being  the  wiser, 
though  some  be  sadder.  When  we  come  to  reckon  up  the 
number  of  young  Koreans  who  are  pursuing  a  course  of 
instruction  along  modern  lines,  we  find  that  they  represent  a 
fraction  of  less  than  one  per  cent,  of  the  men  who  ought  to 
attend,  and  might  easily  be  doing  so."  Such  was  then  the 
condition  of  the  public  education  in  Korea  even  down  until 
after  the  beginning  of  the  Russo-Japanese  war,  or  in  Novem- 
ber of  1904. 

The  foregoing  true  account  of  educational  matters  in  Korea 
is  further  confirmed  and  expanded  by  the  Official  Report 
more  recently  given  out  in  the  name  of  the  Residency-General.1 

1  See  Administrative  Reforms  in  Korea,  p.  4  /. 


330  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

The  report,  however,  notices  the  existence  of  the  accepted 
means  of  education  for  the  village  children  in  the  provinces. 
These  means  were  employed,  after  a  debased  Confucian 
system,  in  so-called  Syo-bang  by  a  sort  of  village  dominie, 
who  gathered  about  him  the  children  of  the  neighborhood 
and  taught  them  the  rudiments  of  reading  and  writing  the 
vernacular.  There  were  in  1894  some  ten  thousand  of  these 
schools  scattered  throughout  the  peninsula.  In  the  barest 
rudiments  of  the  native  language  the  instruction  they  gave 
was  deficient;  of  modern  education  in  other  matters,  there 
was  nothing.  In  Seoul  there  was  also  a  high-school  of 
Confucian  learning  (a  Syong-Kyun-Koari),  where  the  students 
were  taught  the  three  " Primary"  and  the  four  "Middle 
Classics,"  and  were  given  some  lessons  in  history,  geography, 
composition  and  mathematics. 

The  same  Report  further  agrees  with  the  Article  in  the  Ko- 
rean Review  in  considering  the  reforms  proclaimed  in  1894  by 
the  government  as  ineffective.  The  schools  which  sprung  up 
under  the  "  Primary  School  Ordinance,"  with  the  intention  of 
introducing  the  Western  system  of  education,  were  almost 
without  exception  of  the  old  (Shobo)  character.  And,  in- 
deed, how  could  it  be  otherwise,  when  there  were  no  teach- 
ers who  could  give  the  rudiments  of  a  modern  education, 
and  few  pupils  who  desired  such  an  education?  As  for 
the  middle-grade  education  which  the  Seoul  schools  pro- 
fessed to  give,  there  was  little  or  nothing  to  bear  out  their 
pretensions. 

The  Residency- General  aims,  therefore,  "at  nothing  less 
than  the  establishment  of  an  entirely  new  system  of  education 
for  Korea."  But  the  system  does  not  propose  to  interfere 
with,  much  less  wholly  to  close,  the  existing  old-fashioned 
Confucian  institutions.  It  will,  the  rather,  gradually  displace 
them  by  something  better.  The  Government  system  as  now 
planned  contemplates  supplying  the  nation  with  the  necessary 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE     331 

schools  of  the  different  grades,  in  accordance  with  the  outline 
of  reforms  given  below. 

1.  The  former  "Primary  Schools"  have  been  renamed  " Com- 
mon Schools."     The  Common  School  Ordinance  and  Regulations 
have  been  drawn  up  and  put  in  practice ;  the  ten  primary  schools 
of  various  kinds  in  Seoul  having  been  turned  into  Government 
Common  Schools,  and  the  thirteen  Primary  Schools  in  the  prov- 
inces into  Public  Common  Schools.     The  class  work  under  the 
new  regime  was  begun  in  September,  1905,  in  all  these  schools. 
It  has  been  arranged,  further,  to  establish  Public  Common  Schools 
in  twenty-seven  principal  cities  and  towns  of  the  provinces  in 
April  this  year. 

2.  The  former  "Middle  Schools"  have  been  renamed  "High 
Schools";    and  the  "High  School"  Ordinance  and  Regulations 
issued.     The  period  of  study  in  these  schools  has  been  fixed  at 
four  years,  and  graduates  of  the  Common  Schools  are  to  be  taken 
without  the  examination,  which  is,  however,  required  in  the  case 
of  other  candidates  for  admission.     The  number  of  regular  course 
students  in  each  of  these  schools  is  fixed  at  200,  with  the  proviso 
that  they  may  open  a  Hoshu-kwa  class  (or  interim  class  for  those 
who  need  to  complete  their  qualification  before  taking  up  the 
regular  course). 

3.  Reforms  and  the  expansion  of  the  scope  of  work,  judged 
necessary  and  advisable,  have  been  effected  for  the  Normal,  and 
the  Agricultural,  Commercial  and  Industrial  Schools,  which  all 
retain  their  old  names,  while  the  Medical  School  has  been  at- 
tached to  the  Tai-han-ui-won  (or  "Great  Korean  Hospital"). 

4.  Out  of  the  500,000  yen  provided  for  the  extension  of  the 
educational  system,  a  sum  of  340,000  yen  has  been  expended  in 
newly  constructing,  renovating,  or  enlarging  the  Common  School 
buildings.     The  remaining  160,000  yen  has  been  put  in  part  to 
the  service  of  new  buildings  for  the  Normal,  the  Agricultural  and 
Forestry,  and  the  Commercial  Schools;    and  in  part  to  the  fund 
for  necessary  construction  work  and  equipment  for  the  schools  of 
the  Middle  Grade. 

5.  Besides  the  schools  described  above,  a  special  institution 


332  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

having  the  name  of  Syu-hak-won  has  been  established  for  giving 
education  to  the  children  of  the  Imperial  and  aristocratic  families. 
It  has  been  placed  under  the  superintendence  of  the  Minister  of 
the  Household.  The  regular  number  of  scholars  received  into 
this  institution  is  fixed  at  twenty.  The  course  of  instruction  given 
is  not  dissimilar  to  that  in  the  common  schools. 

Any  account  of  educational  reforms  in  Korea  would  be 
quite  inadequate  if  it  did  not  include  mention  of  the  new 
provisions  for  medical  and  surgical  treatment  and  for  the 
education  of  native  physicians  and  surgeons.  Incredible  as 
it  may  seem,  it  is  true  that  there  was  in  the  spring  of  1907 
only  one  native  in  all  Korea  who  had  received  a  thorough 
modern  medical  education;  and  this  one  was  a  woman  who 
had  studied  in  the  United  States  and  was  connected  with  the 
medical  work  of  the  Methodist  Mission  at  Pyeng-yang.  In 
connection  with  one  of  the  three  small  hospitals  hitherto 
existing  in  Seoul  there  has  been  for  some  seven  years  a 
Seoul  Medical  College,  with  only  one  Japanese  instructor. 
The  hospitals  are  now  to  be  united  in  a  single  large  institution, 
for  which  280,000  yen,  to  be  spent  in  construction,  and  123,600 
yen,  for  maintenance,  have  already  been  provided.  This 
hospital  will  also  have  charge  of  training  for  the  medical 
profession  and  for  hygienic  and  sanitary  administration. 
The  site  has  been  secured  and  the  construction  of  the  buildings 
begun,  with  the  expectation  of  having  them  completed  during 
the  year  1907. 

The  educational  work  thus  far  actually  accomplished  in 
Korea  has  been  chiefly  done  by  the  missionary  schools. 
Among  these  schools  those  belonging  to  the  Korean  Mission 
of  the  Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  are  most 
numerous  and  effective.  The  Annual  Report  of  this  Mission 
for  the  year  1906,  under  the  head  of  "  Educational  Work," 
furnishes  information  as  to  the  following  among  other  par- 
ticulars. The  total  enrolment  of  the  "Academy"  was  160, 


EDUCATION,  AND  THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE     333 

of  whom  104  remained  in  school  till  the  close  of  the  year. 
In  the  autumn  of  1905,  twelve  of  the  students,  "contrary  to 
advice  and  orders,  left  the  school  and  joined  the  throng  at 
Seoul,  who  wanted  to  lay  their  lives  on  the  altar  of  their 
country  in  the  effort  to  retain  their  national  independence. 
The  twelve  were  suspended  for  the  year.  Order  was  finally 
restored,  and  the  remaining  pupils  returned  to  their  work 
with  renewed  zeal."  The  class  which  graduated  in  June, 
1906,  consisted  of  four  members.  In  the  fall  of  1906  a  sum 
of  money  amounting  to  somewhat  more  than  $2,000  was  col- 
lected with  a  view  to  starting  a  so-called  "  college."  The 
theological  instruction  which  was  carried  on  at  Pyeng-yang 
during  the  months  of  April,  May,  and  June,  of  the  same 
year,  became  the  germ  of  a  developing  "  Theological  Semi- 
nary" for  the  training  of  an  educated  native  ministry.  An 
advanced  school  for  girls  and  women  had  an  enrolment  of 
53  for  the  year.  The  number  of  local  primary  schools  was 
4  for  boys  and  3  for  girls,  with  a  total  attendance  of  494; 
to  these  should  be  added,  of  the  "  country  schools,"  62  for 
boys  and  8  for  girls,  with  a  total  attendance  of  1,266.  Such 
is  the  report  of  the  " Pyeng-yang  Station."  In  the  "Seoul 
Station,"  for  the  same  year  (1906)  the  report  shows  a  total 
of  105  boys,  in  4  schools,  under  5  teachers,  and  of  48  girls, 
in  4  schools,  under  4  teachers  (rated  as  "Primary  Schools"), 
in  the  city  of  Seoul;  and  27  schools  with  303  boys  and  35 
girls,  belonging  to  the  churches  in  this  station,  outside  of 
Seoul.  There  was  also  in  this  district  one  "Intermediate 
and  Boarding  School,"  with  60  boys  and  23  girls  numbered 
among  its  pupils.  While  the  building  to  accommodate  the 
boys  of  this  school  was  in  process  of  erection,  they  were  com- 
bined with  those  of  a  corresponding  school  belonging  to  the 
Methodist  Mission;  and  the  united  work  carried  on  in  the 
building  belonging  to  the  latter  Mission  thus  attained  a 
total  enrolment  of  150  pupils.  Without  mentioning  the 


334  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

educational  work  done  in  less  important  stations  of  this 
Mission,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  in  the  year  1906  there  were 
7  schools  of  a  grade  above  the  primary,  giving  instruction  to 
255  boys  and  125  girls,  and  208  schools  of  the  lower  grade 
with  an  enrolment  of  3,116  boys  and  795  girls  as  the  aggre- 
gate number  of  their  pupils.  Most  of  the  schools  of  the 
primary  grade,  however,  consist  of  "classes"  somewhat  ir- 
regularly taught,  insufficiently  supplied  with  teachers,  and 
wholly  without  adequate  permanent  accommodations. 

Into  the  actual  condition  of  educational  work  in  Korea, 
so  far  as  such  work  is  dependent  upon  the  attitude  of  the 
Koreans  themselves,  the  following  extract  from  the  Report 
of  the  Union  High  School  gives  a  significant  glimpse:1 

Union  school  work  was  opened  up  in  the  building  known  as 
Pai-chai,  and  was  carried  on  there  during  the  year.  As  is  usually 
the  case  in  opening  a  term  in  Korea,  the  first  two  weeks  were  a 
period  of  growth.  The  students  who  were  with  us  last  year  came 
straggling  along,  while  those  who  came  for  initial  matriculation 
found  their  way  to  us  from  day  to  day,  until  about  130  names 
were  on  the  roll.  It  will  be  a  day  of  rejoicing  when  Korean  stu- 
dents come  to  appreciate  the  opening  day  and  are  to  be  found  in 
their  places  on  that  day,  ready  for  work.  As  it  is  now,  a  day  or 
two,  a  week  or  two,  or  even  a  longer  period,  matters  little  to  them; 
they  come  to  take  up  their  work  when  it  is  wholly  convenient  to 
them.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  slip-shod  way  of  doing  things  is 
a  serious  drawback  in  school  work,  and  it  is  hoped  that  in  some 
way  it  may  be  brought  about  that  every  day  late  at  opening  will 
be  counted  a  day  lost  by  the  student  himself.  But  this  can  be 
secured  only  when  a  higher  value  is  placed  upon  time  than  it  now 
has.  Now  that  our  boys  are  fairly  well  classified,  it  is  hoped  that 
the  difficulty  may  in  a  measure  be  remedied  by  compelling  those 
students  to  drop  back  one  form  whose  general  attendance  grade, 
class-room  work,  and  examinations  do  not  come  up  to  the  pre- 
scribed standard. 

1  Official  Minutes  of  the  Korean  Mission  Conference,  1906,  p.  41. 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE     335 

The  Mission  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  Korea, 
in  its  Conference  Report  for  the  year  1906,  gives  the  number  of 
its  so-called  "High  Schools"  as  2,  with  3  teachers  and  93 
pupils,  and  of  its  "other  schools"  as  54,  with  an  enrolment 
of  1,564  day  scholars.  A  year  later  the  statistics  presented 
to  the  Conference  stated:  "The  Mission  maintains  106 
schools  with  3,787  pupils  under  instruction." 

In  connection  with  the  hospitals  under  both  these  Mis- 
sions at  Seoul  and  at  Pyeng-yang,  a  beginning  has  been  made 
in  the  preparation  of  medical  text-books  for  native  use,  and 
in  the  training  of  natives  for  the  medical  profession. 

The  showing  made  by  the  facts  just  stated  is  meagre 
enough,  when  we  consider  that  it  is  the  best  that  can  honestly 
be  made  for  a  modern  nation  of  about  ten  millions.  There 
is  reason  to  believe,  however,  that  the  statistics  exaggerate, 
rather  than  minimize,  the  results  already  achieved  along 
educational  lines.  There  has,  indeed,  been  a  beginning, 
but  only  a  beginning.  There  are  generous  plans  adopted 
and  set  in  operation ;  but  the  effectual  working  of  these  plans 
on  any  considerable  scale  remains  for  the  future  to  bring 
about.  The  interest  of  the  Emperor  and  his  Court  in  the 
educational  reform  of  Korea  was  no  more  to  be  depended 
upon  than  was  their  interest  in  any  other  reform,  or  real  and 
substantial  good,  accruing  to  the  benefit  of  the  Korean 
public.  So  far  as  these  influences  prevailed,  the  Korean 
system  was  in  1904,  and  would  have  remained,  an  affair  of 
paper  only.  But  the  Korean  Department  of  Education, 
under  the  Residency-General,  has  co-operated  faithfully  in 
efforts  to  give  to  the  country  an  efficient  system  of  public 
education.  The  former  Minister  of  Education,  now  (1907) 
Prime  Minister  Yi,  has  been  at  once  the  strongest  and  the 
most  sincere  of  the  Korean  officials  under  the  Japanese 
Protectorate.  The  hope  of  Korea,  and  the  realization  of 
the  hopes  of  the  Marquis  Ito  for  Korea,  depend  upon  the 


336  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

initiation  and  execution  of  a  wise  Government  policy  of  edu- 
cation more  than  upon  any  other  one  influence.  Unaided  by 
Japan,  Korea  would  never  bring  this  about.  As  said  Mr. 
Hulbert,  when  in  his  better  mind:1  "What  Korea  wants  is 
education;  and  until  steps  are  taken  in  that  line  there  is  no 
use  in  hoping  for  a  genuinely  independent  Korea.  Now  we 
believe  that  a  large  majority  of  the  best  informed  Koreans 
realize  that  Japan  and  Japanese  influence  stand  for  educa- 
tion and  enlightenment;  and  that  while  the  paramount  influ- 
ence of  any  one  outside  power  is  in  some  sense  a  humiliation, 
the  paramount  influence  of  Japan  will  furnish  far  less  genuine 
cause  for  humiliation  than  has  the  paramount  influence  of 
Russia.  Russia  secured  her  predominance  by  pandering  to 
the  worst  elements  in  Korean  officialdom.  Japan  holds  it 
by  strength  of  arm,  but  she  holds  it  in  such  a  way  as  to  give 
promise  of  something  better.  The  word  reform  never  passed 
the  Russian's  lips.  It  is  the  insistent  cry  of  Japan.  The 
welfare  of  the  Korean  people  never  showed  its  head  above 
the  Russian  horizon,  but  it  fills  the  whole  vision  of  Japan ;  not 
from  altruistic  motives  mainly,  but  because  the  prosperity 
of  Korea  and  that  of  Japan  rise  and  fall  with  the  same  tide." 2 
In  the  future  development  and  administration  of  educa- 

1  Korean  Review,  of  February,  1904. 

2  It  is  significant  to  notice  in  this  connection  that  previous  to  his 
several  commissions  from  the  Korean  Emperor,  this  writer  held  a  quite 
different  view  from  that  which  he  afterward   advocated  with  regard 
to  the  underlying  principle  of  all  the   recent   relations  between   the 
two  countries.     In  the  same  article  he  says:    "The   present  chaotic 
state  of  the  national  finances  and  of  popular  discontent,  show  some- 
thing of  what  Russian  influence  has  accomplished  in  Korea;  and  the 
people  are  coming  to  realize  the  fact.     They  are  passionately  attached 
to  the  theory  of  national  'independence.'     We  say  theory  advisedly. 
This  word  '  independence '  is  a  sort  of  fetich  'to  which  they  bow,  but 
they  think  that  independence  means  liberation  from  outside  control 
alone,  forgetting  that  genuine  independence  means  likewise  a  liberation 
from  evil  influences  within,  and  that  liberty,  so  far  from  being  carte 
blanche  to  do  as  one  pleases,  is  in  truth  the  apotheosis  of  law," 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE     337 

tional  affairs  in  Korea  two  principles  are  especially  important 
to  be  kept  in  mind.  The  first  is  the  necessity  for  co-operation 
on  the  part  of  all  the  educative  forces  under  some  system  or 
general  plan.  On  the  one  hand,  the  private  and  missionary 
schools  could  never  suffice  for  the  educational  reform  of  the 
nation;  neither  could  they  supply  adequately  the  needed 
number  or  kind  of  schools  for  its  proper  educational  develop- 
ment. In  general,  missionary  schools  belong  to  the  planting 
and  earlier  stages  of  religious  propagandism  among  peoples 
who  have  either  no  system  of  public  education  or  a  system 
which  is  hostile  to  religious  influences.  Missionary  schools 
are  of  necessity  foreign  schools;  when  they  have  effectually 
performed  their  initial  work,  they  should  somehow  become  a 
part  of  the  native  equipment  for  educating  the  people.  As 
we  have  already  said,  they  have  until  recently  been  almost 
the  only — though  exceedingly  meagre  and  faulty — means  for 
giving  the  rudiments  of  a  modern  education  to  a  small  fraction 
of  Korean  youth.  They  never  could  be  developed,  if  they 
remain  simply  missionary  schools,  so  as  to  cope  with  the 
entire  educational  problem  in  this  land  of  public  ignorance 
and  of  intellectual  and  moral  degradation.  Those  who  are 
in  charge  of  them,  therefore,  should  be  among  the  most 
forward  to  welcome  cordially,  and  effectively  to  assist,  the 
organization  and  advance  of  a  national  system  of  public 
education  in  Korea.  Otherwise  their  highest  service  can 
never  be  rendered  to  the  country;  their  most  important  and 
ultimate  purpose  of  contributing  toward  the  evolving  of  an 
intelligent  Christian  nation  can  never  be  realized. 

On  the  other  hand,  any  plans  for  the  establishing  and 
developing  of  a  system  of  education  in  Korea  at  the  present 
time  should  be  wise  and  generous  in  the  matter  of  taking  into 
its  confidence,  and  availing  itself  of,  the  assistance  of  the 
mission  schools.  So  miserably  poor  is  Korea  in  all  resources 
of  this  character,  that  the  barest  principles  of  economics  en- 


338          IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

force  the  necessity  of  her  availing  herself  of  all  possible  helps. 
Moreover,  the  converts  to  Christianity — although  a  very  con- 
siderable proportion  of  them  are  ignorant  of  the  truths,  and 
negligent  of  the  morals,  of  the  foreign  religion  they  suppose 
themselves  to  have  espoused — are  multiplying  rapidly,  and 
are  destined  to  become  of  more  and  more  political  and  social 
significance  in  the  near  future.  Some  sort  of  regulated  co- 
operation and  conformity  to  a  general  plan  should,  therefore, 
as  speedily  as  possible  be  secured  between  the  Government 
and  the  private  Christian  schools.  The  Japanese  and 
Korean  Governments  and  the  Missionary  Boards  should 
speedily  agree  upon  some  common  plan  for  the  requirements 
of  the  primary  and  secondary  grades  of  instruction,  and  thus 
actively  assist  each  other  in  the  attainment  of  their  com- 
mon end.  That  this  cannot  be  done  without  sacrificing  the 
special  interests  deemed  most  important  to  each,  it  would  be 
in  contempt  of  the  good  sense  and  sincerity  of  both  to 
affirm. 

The  second  most  important  principle  to  set  in  control  of  the 
educational  system  of  Korea  is  this.  At  first,  and  for  a  long 
time  to  come,  it  should  be  pretty  strictly  limited  to  fitting  the 
Koreans  themselves  for  a  serviceable  life,  in  Korea,  and  under 
the  conditions,  physical,  social,  and  economic  and  political, 
of  Korea.  To  educate — after  the  fashion  followed  too  much 
by  Great  Britain  in  India — thousands  of  Korean  babus,  who 
thus  become  unfitted  for  the  pressing  needs  of  their  country 
at  this  present  day,  and  inclined  to  idleness  rather  than  any 
hard  and  disagreeable  but  useful  work,  would  be  a  mistake 
which  neither  the  Government  nor  the  Missions  can  afford 
to  make.  It  is  a  fact,  however,  that,  up  to  the  present  time, 
too  large  a  proportion  of  the  Korean  youth,  whether  educated 
abroad  or  in  the  missionary  schools  at  home,  have  lapsed  into 
this  worthless  class.  When  called  upon  to  work — manfully, 
faithfully,  persistently,  doing  with  his  might  what  his  hand 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE     339 

finds  to  do — the  Korean,  like  the  Indian  babu,  is  likely  to 
show  that  his  modern  education  has  the  more  unfitted,  rather 
than  the  better  fitted,  him  for  the  effectual  service  of  his 
country.  If  this  should  be  the  result  of  modern  education, 
it  would  be  scarcely  more  to  be  commended,  under  existing 
conditions  in  Korea,  than  was  the  education  of  the  old-time 
Confucian  schools. 

The  extension  of  the  educational  system  of  Korea  ought, 
therefore,  for  some  time  to  come  to  be  almost  exclusively 
limited  to  these  two  lines— namely,  to  providing  the  barest 
elements  of  a  modern  education  for  all  the  children  of  Korea, 
and  to  the  equipping  and  developing  of  the  means  for  fitting 
the  youths  of  both  sexes  for  the  most  needed  forms  of  public 
service.  The  time  to  spend  large  sums  of  money  on  the 
higher  branches  of  a  liberal  culture  has  not  come  as  yet  for 
Korea.  The  present  urgent  need  of  the  country  is  for  men 
who  will  tend  her  fields  and  forests,  develop  her  mines  and 
manual  arts  and  manufactures  with  intelligence;  run  her 
railroad  trains  with  safety;  who  will  occupy  her  magistracies 
with  some  knowledge  of  ethics  and  of  law;  and  care  for  her 
sick  and  injured  with  skill  in  medicine  and  surgery.  Colleges 
and  universities  for  rearing  scholars,  authors,  philosophers,  or 
gentlemen  of  learned  leisure  with  Government  sinecures,  can 
bide  their  time. 

The  deplorable  condition  of  the  Public  Justice  in  Korea, 
from  the  beginnings  of  the  history  of  the  United  Kingdom 
down  to  the  present  time,  has  been  both  assumed  and  illus- 
trated in  the  preceding  pages.  It  is  difficult  to  give  any 
adequate  picture  of  this  condition  in  few  words.  The  re- 
straints of  a  constitution  or  a  recognized  legal  code  have  had 
no  existence.  Court  and  local  magistrates  have  been  alike, 
with  rare  exceptions,  either  inefficient  or  wholly  corrupt. 
The  administrative  and  judicial  functions  have  not  been  dis- 
tinguished, and  both  have  been  under  the  control  of  "influ- 


340  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

ence,"  and  devoted  to  "squeezes"  and  bribes.  Of  this  illegal 
and  unjust  condition  the  police  and  the  army  were,  under 
the  old  system,  the  instruments.  And  whenever  during  these 
sad  centuries  of  injustice  an  occasional  monarch,  or  a  few 
of  the  inferior  officials,  attempted  reform,  if  in  the  one  case 
the  attempt  was  partially  successful,  the  old  condition  soon 
returned;  while  the  inferior  official  who  wished  to  be  more 
just  than  his  colleagues,  by  this  very  attempt  risked  his  po- 
sition or  even  his  head. 

Among  the  reforms  contemporaneous  with  the  Chino- 
Japan  war  (1894),  the  remedy  for  the  existing  maladminis- 
tration of  justice  in  Korea  naturally  had  a  prominent  place. 
Some  of  the  forms  of  injustice  then  in  common  use — such  as 
the  bribing  of  judges  and  the  punishment  of  accused  persons 
without  even  the  semblance  of  a  trial — had  no  justification 
under  Korean  law,  so  far  as  law  existed  at  that  time.  Other 
equally  deplorable  forms  of  injustice  were,  however,  strictly 
legal; — as,  for  example,  the  infliction  of  penalties  on  the  in- 
nocent relatives  of  a  condemned  criminal,  and  the  imprison- 
ment of  the  household  of  an  official  charged  with  extortion. 
In  particular,  the  use  of  torture — barbarous  in  kind  and  ex- 
treme in  cruelty — was  in  "full  accord"  with  the  legal  system 
of  the  Ming  dynasty  in  China,  which  formed  the  basis  of  the 
Korean  code.  Of  the  older  forms  of  torture  some,  such  as 
crushing  the  knee-caps,  slitting  the  nostrils,  applying  pincers 
or  hot  irons,  had  already  been  in  1894  abolished  by  the  Ming 
dynasty;  but  a  great  number  of  equally  painful  forms  of 
torture  were  still  legally  in  practice  at  that  time.  Among 
such  were  seating  the  victim  on  hot  coals,  driving  splinters 
under  the  toe-nails,  applying  fire  to  the  feet  and  hands, 
pounding  the  shins,  and  squeezing  the  ankles.  On  the 
eleventh  of  January,  1895,  however,  the  Minister  of  Justice 
obtained  the  king's  assent  to  the  abolition  of  all  the  more 
severe  forms  of  torture  except  in  capital  cases.  To  enforce 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE     341 

confession  of  guilt  by  beating  with  a  stick  was  still  to  be 
allowed.1 

The  reforms  promised  and  inaugurated  in  1895,  with  re- 
spect to  the  improvement  of  the  administration  of  justice, 
like  all  the  other  reforms  of  that  time,  scarcely  went  beyond 
the  so-called  "  paper  stage."  Some  forms  of  torture  were, 
indeed,  no  longer  customarily  practised;  but  on  the  whole 
the  barbarous  treatment  of  accused  and  convicted  criminals 
was  not  greatly  improved.  In  civil  cases  the  practice  of  the 
Court  and  of  the  magistrates  was  never  worse  than  during 
the  period  preceding  the  Russo-Japanese  war.  It  was,  as 
has  already  been  shown  (p.  233  /.),  "an  orgy  of  indepen- 
dence." 

In  the  opinion  of  Marquis  Ito,  when  he  became  Resident- 
General,  the  primary  and  most  important  thing  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  public  justice  was  the  discovery,  systematizing, 
and  promulgation  of  the  "law  of  the  land."  But  how  should 
this  difficult  task  be  accomplished?  Or — as  involving  sub- 
ordinate questions  of  great  importance — upon  what  founda- 
tion of  principles  should  the  task  be  undertaken?  In  the 
reforms  of  1894-95  the  plans  of  the  Korean  and  Japanese 

1  Among  the  many  falsehoods  told  by  the  Koreans  and  their  "Foreign 
Friends,"  in  their  endeavors  to  excite  pity  for  themselves,  and,  pos- 
sibly, interference  with  the  Japanese  Administration  in  Korea,  none  is 
more  ridiculous  than  that  the  latter  were  reviving  the  use  of  torture. 
It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that,  previous  to  the  Convention  of  July, 
1907,  which  followed  upon  the  promulgation  of  this  and  other  more 
important  false  charges  by  the  commissioners  to  The  Hague  Con- 
ference, the  Japanese  Residency-General's  power  did  not  extend  to  the 
interference  with  the  execution  of  the  Korean  law  upon  Korean  crim- 
inals. Preliminary  examination  by  beating  with  a  stick  was  then 
legal;  according  to  credible  current  report  it  was  practiced  upon  the 
vice-Minister  of  Education,  when,  during  my  visit  to  Korea,  he  was 
accused  of  having  contributed  money  toward  effecting  the  assassination 
of  the  Ministry  (see  p.  51).  All  this  is  quite  different  from  the  retort 
which  might  be  made  to  critics  from  the  United  States  to  remember 
the  practice  of  "water-cure"  in  the  Philippines,  etc. 


342  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

enthusiasts  involved  the  sudden  making  of  all  things  new. 
At  once,  a  tolerably  complete  modern  code  was  to  be  devised 
and  forced  upon  the  people  of  Korea.  In  accordance  with 
these  plans  an  abundance  of  legislation  was  enacted;  but 
most  of  it  was,  of  necessity,  ineffective,  since  it  was  neither 
adapted  to  the  present  condition  of  Korean  civilization  nor 
ever  honestly  applied.  At  the  present  time  in  Japan  and  in 
view  of  the  large  increase  of  power  given  to  the  Resident- 
General  by  the  Convention  of  1907,  there  is  a  difference  of 
opinion  as  to  the  proper  procedure  in  the  reform  of  the  public 
justice  in  Korea.  A  certain  party  would  repeat  the  mistakes 
of  more  than  a  decade  ago.  They  would  have  the  Japanese 
Protectorate  secure  the  ''entire  adoption  of  the  new  Japanese 
Criminal  Code,  and  in  civil  suits  provide  Korea  with  'an 
entirely  new  set  of  laws'  patterned  after  those  of  modern 
civilized  nations."  This  would  be  a  comparatively  easy 
matter,  so  far  as  the  preparation  of  a  code  is  concerned. 
But  it  would  undoubtedly  be  relatively  defective  so  far  as  the 
actual  reform  of  justice  in  Korea  is  concerned.  "The 
Resident- General,"  says  Mr.  Stevens,  "is  manifestly  deter- 
mined to  avoid  this  mistake,  and  to  provide,  in  the  first  place, 
some  adequate  means  for  the  enforcement  of  the  law." 
Meantime,  the  work  of  codification  is  proceeding  cautiously. 
The  first  step  in  this  work  was  directed  toward  the  "law 
affecting  real  estate." 

"This  law"— namely,  the  law  affecting  real  estate— "has 
been  taken  up  before  all  others,  because,  despite  the  fact  that 
in  the  present  economic  condition  of  the  country  immovables 
form  the  most  important  object  of  ownership,  Korea  as  yet 
possesses  no  law  of  any  real  efficiency  to  protect  rights 
relating  to  real  property.  For  instance,  in  selling  and  buying 
a  piece  of  land  or  in  mortgaging  it,  the  parties  concerned 
have  nothing  to  go  by  but  to  follow  the  old  custom  of  hand- 
ing over  and  receiving  the  bunki,  or  title  deeds,  which  are 


EDUCATION  AND^THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE     343 

generally  in  the  form  of  a  file  of  documents  vouchsafing  the 
transaction.  It  so  happens  that  the  country  is  now  flooded 
with  forged  bunkis,  and  there  is  really  no  security  for  prop- 
erty. For  this  reason,  in  July  last  (1906)  the  Resident- 
General  caused  the  Korean  Government  to  institute  a  Real 
Property  Law  Investigation  Commission,  and  urged  the  in- 
vestigation of  established  customs  and  usages  pertaining  to 
immovables,  with  a  view  to  drafting  with  the  utmost  de- 
spatch a  law  of  real  property  of  a  simple  and  concise  char- 
acter. The  Commission  made  rapid  progress  in  its  work, 
and  in  consequence  of  this  the  Land  and  Buildings  Certifica- 
tion Regulations  (Imperial  Ordinance)  and  the  Detailed 
Rules  of  operation  thereof  (Justice  Department  Ordinance) 
were  promulgated  respectively  on  the  3ist  of  October  and 
the  yth  of  November  following.  According  to  the  Regula- 
tions, in  the  case  of  transfer  of  land  lots  and  buildings  by 
sale,  exchange,  or  gift,  and  in  that  of  mortgaging  them,  the 
contracts  are  certified  to  by  a  Kun  magistrate  or  Pu  pre- 
fect; and  a  contract  thus  certified  constitutes  a  full  legal 
document,  by  virtue  of  which  the  transfer  .may  be  validly 
carried  out  without  decisions  of  any  law  court.  When,  how- 
ever, one  of  the  parties  to  the  contract  happens  to  be  an 
alien,  not  a  Korean  subject,  the  document  needs  to  be  addi- 
tionally examined  and  certified  to  by  a  Resident,  otherwise 
the  document  is  lacking  in  legal  efficacy.  When  neither  of 
the  parties  are  Korean  subjects,  certification  by  a  Resident 
alone  is  sufficient.  Simple  as  the  law  is,  its  effect  is  far- 
reaching.  To  give  an  instance,  originally  treaties  withJJCorea 
took  cognizance  of  .a  foreigner's,  right  to  possess  land  only 
within  the  settlements  and  one  ri  zone  around  them,  and 
hitherto  all  foreigners  have  experienced  considerable  diffi- 
culty in  securing  landed  property  in  the  interior  of  the 
country;  but  now,  the  above  Regulations  recognize  the  right 
of  foreigners  to  possess  land  in  the  interior,  and  the  result  of 


344  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

their  promulgation  is  the  practical  opening  of  the  whole 
empire  to  foreigners. 

"  Following  this  line  of  action,  the  Real  Property  Investiga- 
tion Commission  is  steadily  working  on  laws  of  various  de- 
scriptions, and  it  is  expected  that  before  long  that  body 
will  be  able  to  recommend  some  plan  to  place  the  land  sys- 
tem of  Korea  on  a  solid  and  fair  basis.  As  soon  as  the  Real 
Property  Law  is  drawn  up  and  promulgated  in  a  perfected 
form,  the  codification  of  other  laws  will  be  taken  in 
hand."  l 

The  necessity  for  providing  means  effectively  to  enforce  the 
existing  and  the  newly  to  be  enacted  laws  is  obvious  to  any 
one  who  is  acquainted  with  the  methods  of  Korean  justice 
down  to  the  present  time.  This  necessity  becomes  the  more 
imperative  on  account  of  the  condition  of  dissatisfaction  and 
unrest  which  followed  the  Russo-Japanese  war  and  the 
establishment  of  the  Japanese  Protectorate  over  Korea.  It 
was  further  emphasized  and  brought  to  an  acute  form  at  the 
time  when  the  abdication  of  the  Emperor  and  the  disband- 
ment  of  the  Korean  army,  on  the  one  hand,  exaggerated  the 
alleged  reasons  for  revolt,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  let  loose 
the  forces  most  ready  and  appropriate  to  make  revolt  effect- 
ive. The  experience  in  connection  with  the  repeated  at- 
tempts made  to  assassinate  the  Korean  Ministry  showed 
plainly  enough  that  Korean  police  and  military  could  not  be 
depended  upon  to  protect  the  rights  or  the  lives  of  their  own 
countrymen.  Subsequent  events  showed  that  these  same 
" minions  of  the  law"  were  most  dangerous  to  the  property 
and  lives  of  foreigners.  Hence  the  imperative  need  of  a 

1  Quoted,  as  are  the  following  paragraphs  bearing  quotation  marks, 
from  the  pamphlet  prepared  under  the  supervision  of  the  Resident- 
General,  and  published  in  Seoul,  January,  1907,  on  Administrative 
Reforms  in  Korea.  [These  quotations  are  made  exactly,  and  without 
attempt  to  change  the  language  in  accordance  with  our  use  of  legal 
terms.] 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE     345 

reorganization  of  the  police.     On  this  matter  of  reform,  the 
Report  of  the  Resident- General  discourses  as  follows: 

In  olden  times  Korea  had  practically  no  police  system.  Under 
the  central  Government  there  was  indeed  the  "Burglar  Capture 
Office,"  while  the  provincial  Governors  were  privileged  to  exer- 
cise police  powers  for  the  maintenance  of  peace  and  order.  But 
the  evil  practice  of  selling  offices  being  prevalent,  the  officials 
made  it  their  business  to  extort  unjust  exactions,  and  the  people 
enjoyed  no  security  of  life  and  property.  In  the  year  503  of  the 
Korean  national  era  (1894)  the  "Burglar  Capture  Office"  was 
closed  and  replaced  by  a  "  Kyong-mu-chyong"  (Police  Office), 
the  latter  being  entrusted  with  the  work  of  administering  and 
superintending  the  police  and  prison  affairs  within  the  city  of 
Seoul.  The  capital  was  then  divided  into  five  wards  with  a 
police  station  in  each.  Further,  the  Korean  Government  en- 
gaged advisers  from  among  police  inspectors  of  our  Metropolitan 
Police  Board,  and  put  in  force  various  laws  and  ordinances,  de- 
fining and  regulating  the  duties  of  the  police  force,  besides  adopt- 
ing fixed  uniforms  for  men  and  officers,  all  in  imitation  of  the 
Japanese  system.  At  the  same  time  the  "  Kyong-mu-koan  "  was 
created  in  the  provincial  Governor's  Offices,  for  the  exclusive 
management  of  local  police  affairs.  Since  then  numerous  changes 
have  followed,  and  the  Japanese  police  advisers  have  been  dis- 
missed. In  1895  the  Kyong-mu-chyong  was  abolished,  and  a 
new  Department  of  Police  was  established.  Then  the  police  ad- 
ministration of  the  whole  country  was  centralized  in  the  hands  of 
the  Minister  of  Police.  This  innovation  was,  however,  but  short 
lived,  and  the  Kyong-mu-chyong  came  to  be  resuscitated,  the  whole 
police  system  being  now  placed  in  the  control  of  the  Minister  of 
Home  Affairs.  At  that  time,  in  virtue  of  her  treaty  with  Korea, 
Japan  not  only  took  her  own  means  of  protecting  her  subjects 
residing  in  that  country,  but  despatched  police  officials  who  were 
required  in  carrying  out  her  rights  connected  with  her  Consular 
Courts.  Subsequent  to  the  Japan-China  war,  the  number  of 
Japanese  resident  in  Korea  steadily  increased,  and  as  years  went 
by  a  similar  change  took  place  with  regard  to  the  number  of  our 


346  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

police  attached  to  the  Consulates,  so  that  the  latter  had  finally  to 
have  a  regular  police  station  within  each  Consular  compound. 
Thus  it  happened  that  by  the  time  of  the  Russo-Japanese  war, 
Korea  had  come  to  have  two  police  systems  in  force  in  the  land. 
When  the  war  broke  out  Korea  engaged  Japanese  advisers  for 
her  police  administration,  and  everything  connected  therewith, 
large  or  small,  underwent  changes  in  accordance  with  their  views. 
At  that  juncture  there  was  necessity,  for  military  reasons,  of  in- 
troducing into  Korea  Japanese  military  police  or  gendarmerie,  so 
that  the  country  has  since  come  to  have  simultaneously  within  her 
bounds  three  police  organizations — namely,  the  native  police,  the 
Japanese  Consulate  police,  and  the  gendarmerie. 

On  the  establishment  of  the  Residency- General,  after  the  ter- 
mination of  the  war,  all  three  systems  were  brought  under  the 
unified  control  of  the  Resident- General,  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
promote  the  national  tranquillity  of  Korea,  each  supplementing 
the  work  of  the  other.  Under  the  new  arrangement  all  ordinary 
police  work  is  placed  in  the  hands  either  of  the  Japanese  or  of  the 
Korean  police,  to  suit  the  needs  of  the  localities  concerned;  while 
the  gendarmes  are  to  look  after  the  higher  class  of  police  affairs 
or  those  relating  to  acts  that  tend  to  endanger  the  safety  of  the 
Korean  Imperial  House,  or  to  defy  the  authority  of  the  Korean 
Government,  or  to  disturb  the  friendly  relations  between  Japan 
and  Korea.  At  one  time  the  gendarmerie  was  divided  into  twelve 
sub-companies,  and  fifty-five  detail  stations  were  established  for 
them.  Under  the  new  regime  184  men  have  been  honorably  dis- 
charged, having  been  retained  in  the  service  beyond  their  regular 
term,  or  belonging  to  the  reserve.  At  the  same  time  the  number 
of  detail  stations  was  reduced  to  thirty-two.  The  need  of  aug- 
menting the  strength  of  the  Japanese  and"  native  police  being  in- 
creasingly felt,  measures  are  being  steadily  taken  in  this  direction 
within  the  limits  which  the  circumstances  allow. 

The  laws  of  the  land  may  be  enlightened  in  their  construc- 
tion, and  the  police  thoroughly  well  organized  and  efficient; 
but  if  the  courts  of  justice  are  not  intelligent  and  honest, 
the  public  justice  is  not  secure.  In  Korea,  as  in  China,  from 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE     347 

which  country  she  derived  her  administrative  and  judicial 
system,  two  principal  evil  influences  have  prevented  any 
effectual  reform  in  the  judiciary.  These  are  the  failure  to 
separate  the  executive  and  judiciary  branches  of  government, 
and  the  fact  that  officials  generally  have  not  been  dependent 
upon  sufficient  salaries  for  their  reward,  but,  chiefly,  upon  the 
amounts  which  could  be  squeezed  out  of  the  offices. 

"The  way  in  which  justice  has  been  administrated  in 
Korea,"  says  the  Report,  "is  too  revolting  to  all  sense  of 
decency  to  be  told  in  detail.  Her  political  development  has 
never  yet  attained  that  stage  when  the  executive  and  judiciary 
branches  of  government  separate  and  become  independent 
of  each  other.  The  privilege  of  meting  out  justice  has  always 
been  in  the  hands  of  executive  officials,  and  abuses  have 
grown  up  in  consequence  of  this.  Justice,  which  should 
always  be  fair  and  upright,  has  generally  allowed  itself  to  be 
influenced  by  the  amount  of  bribe  offered,  and  right  or  wrong 
often  changed  places  according  to  the  .power  and  influence 
of  the  parties  concerned.  The  conviction  of  innocent  people, 
the  confiscation  of  their  property,  and  the  liberation  of  the 
guilty,  all  under  a  travesty  of  trials,  have  been  common 
occurrences;  very  frequently,  too,  contributions  in  money  or 
in  kind  have  been  extorted  under  threats  of  litigation.  Korea, 
indeed,  possesses  a  law  court  organization  by  virtue  of  a  law 
promulgated  in  1895,  and  according  to  it  the  courts  are  of  the 
following  descriptions:  i.  Special  Court  of  Law  (tries 
crimes  committed  by  members  of  the  Imperial  family). 
2.  Court  of  Cassation.  3.  Circuit  Courts.  4.  (Seoul)  The 
Trade  Port  Courts  (courts  of  first  resort).  5.  District 
Courts  (courts  of  first  resort),  and  their  branches  (when 
needed)." 

"The  truth  is,  however,  that  this  organization  exists 
merely  on  paper,  the  only  courts  in  actual  existence  being  the 
Court  of  Cassation  and  the  Seoul  Court.  In  the  provinces, 


348  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

the  governors,  commissioners  and  superintendents  are,  as 
of  old,  also  judges  and  hear  and  judge  both  civil  and  criminal 
cases.  The  Kun  magistrates,  too,  retain  their  judiciary 
powers,  which  are,  however,  limited  in  extent.  Even  at  the 
independent  courts,  such  as  the  Court  of  Cassation  and  the 
Seoul  Court,  judges  and  prosecutors  are  men  totally  deficient 
in  legal  knowledge  and  training,  and  their  judgments  often 
,end  in  the  miscarriage  of  justice.  It  is  not  surprising  that 
justice  is  generally  made  the  object  of  ridicule  and  contempt 
in  Korea  both  by  the  natives  and  by  foreigners.  Treaties 
give  foreigners  from  the  West  the  right  to  bring  an  action 
against  the  natives  in  the  Korean  Courts  in  cases  of  a  certain 
description;  but  none  of  them  has  ever  made  use  of  such  a 
right.  When  any  legal  dispute  arises,  these  foreigners  always 
make  an  international  question  of  it  and  bring  it  before  the 
Residency- General.  Leave  the  situation  as  it  at  present  is, 
and  the  day  will  never  come  when  Korea  may  be  freed  from 
the  system  of  extra-territoriality.  It  being  evident  that  the 
chief  cause  responsible  for  this  regrettable  state  of  things  lies 
in  the  judiciary  in  force  and  the  incompetency  of  judges,  the 
Resident- General  has  decided  first  to  effect  reform  on  these 
two  points,  with  others  to  follow  gradually.  The  reforms 
he  has  already  put  in  practice  for  this  purpose  may  be 
outlined  as  follows"  [Here  given  only  in  summary  form]: — 

The  creation  of  the  office  of  Chief  Councillor  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  Justice  (the  incumbent  to  be  a  Japanese);  increase 
in  the  number  of  judges,  procurators,  and  clerks;  the  con- 
stituting of  the  Prefects  of  the  eleven  Prefectures  to  act  as 
Judges;  provision  for  proper  offices  and  for  the  travelling 
and  other  expenses  of  the  Judges  and  the  Law  Courts;  the 
introduction  of  rules  of  the  civil  service  order,  so  that  care 
may  be  exercised  in  the  appointment  of  judiciary  officials,  etc. 

It  has  already  been  made  sufficiently  clear,  however,  that 
the  one  instrument  of  the  public  justice  which  conies  closest 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE     349 

to  the  common  people  of  Korea,  and  which  determines  more 
than  any  other  the  spirit  of  satisfaction  with  their  condition 
or  of  unrest  and  revolt,  is  the  local  magistracy.  On  the 
''Reform  of  Local  Administration"  the  Report  remarks  as 
follows : 

One  thing  that  has  defied  satisfactory  solution  ever  since  the 
beginning  of  the  present  Yi  dynasty  is  the  problem  of  the  political 
division  of  Korea.  Soon  after  the  Japan- China  war,  Pak  Yong- 
hyo,  who  was  then  Minister  of  Home  Affairs,  tried  a  radical 
change  by  turning  the  country  into  23  prefectures.  It  was  an 
innovation  indeed,  but  short-lived,  for  not  long  after  the  country 
returned  practically  to  its  former  division  of  13  provinces,  one 
crown  district,  three  prefectures  and  341  districts  (excepting  Han- 
Yang  pu),  with  a  Governor  for  each  province,  a  Crown  Commis- 
sioner for  the  crown  district,  a  Magistrate  for  each  district,  a 
Prefect  for  each  prefecture,  and  a  Superintendent  for  each  open 
port.  Nor  has  this  division  seen  much  change  since  then.  It  is 
true  that  the  question  of  local  administration  was  one  of  the 
many  that  confronted  the  Residency- General  when  it  set  out  on 
its  work  of  politically  regenerating  Korea.  A  special  Commission 
was  instituted,  and  under  the  direction  of  the  Resident- General 
its  members  carried  investigations  deep  into  the  root  of  the  evils 
and  abuses  to  be  removed.  As  the  result  all  changes,  sudden 
and  radical,  from  fear  of  unnecessarily  provoking  popular  excite- 
ment, were  carefully  avoided.  Having  in  view,  however,  the  new 
condition  of  things,  the  Commission  decided  on  a  plan  of  pro- 
vincial reforms,  which  took  the  form  of  an  Imperial  Ordinance 
proclaiming  a  "New  Official  Organization"  and  "Detailed  Rules" 
for  its  operation.  These  were  issued  on  the  28th  of  September 
last  and  put  in  force  on  the  ist  of  October. 

The  more  detailed  features  of  the  reforms  proposed  are 
uninteresting  and  difficult  to  understand  for  one  not  making 
a  special  study  of  Korean  local  administration  from  the 
expert's  point  of  view.  In  general,  the  reforms  are  intended 
to  separate  the  appointment  and  control  of  the  local  magis- 


350  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

tracy  from  Court  and  other  corrupt  official  influences;  to  put 
a  stop  to  the  evil  practice  "of  selling  offices  by  holding 
examinations  for  official  candidates";  to  reduce  the  tempta- 
tion to  increase  the  squeezes,  by  increasing  the  legitimate 
salary  and  by  providing  properly  for  office,  travelling,  and 
other  expenses;  and  to  adopt  and  install  "a  new  official 
organization  for  the  provincial  governors  and  their  subordi- 
nates, classifying  the  nature  of  the  business  to  be  managed 
by  them  and  denning  their  powers  of  issuing  administrative 
orders,  of  levying  local  taxes  and  of  conducting  other  affairs." 
These  reforms  require  a  considerable  increase  in  the  number 
of  officials  in  both  the  Do  (or  Province)  and  Pu  (or  Prefecture) ; 
but  they  leave  the  Runs  (or  smaller  districts)  substantially 
unchanged  in  this  regard. 

Besides  the  above  changes,  the  Residency- General  has 
already  established  a  Residency  or  a  Branch  Residency  in 
each  of  the  provincial  capitals.  Further,  the  Local  Adminis- 
tration Investigation  Commission  is  now  making  enquiries 
into  village  constitutions,  village  assembly  regulations,  and 
other  village  association  systems,  handed  down  from  olden 
times.  From  the  data  thus  obtained,  a  plan  will  be  drawn 
up  for  the  ultimate  introduction  of  the  system  of  local  auton- 
omy. As  to  the  reorganization  of  the  Law  Court  system, 
the  independence  of  the  Department  of  Justice,  the  separation 
of  tax  collection  from  routine  executive  business  as  the 
result  of  the  establishment  of  a  new  Taxation  Bureau  with 
a  chief  of  its  own,  etc.,  these  form,  no  doubt,  a  part  of  local 
administration  reform. 

Only  the  result  can  tell  how  far,  and  how  soon,  these 
plans  for  the  reform  of  the  public  justice  in  Korea  can  so 
change  its  present  deplorable  condition  in  this  regard  as  to 
satisfy  the  reasonable  wishes  of  the  Marquis  Ito,  and  the 
Japanese  Government,  so  far  as  it  is  supporting  him  in  his 
peaceful  and  benevolent  plans.  The  events  which  have  oc- 


EDUCATION  AND  THE  PUBLIC  JUSTICE     351 

curred  since  this  Report  on  Administrative  Reforms  was 
composed,  have,  on  the  one  side,  given  to  the  Resident- 
General  and  his  helpers  a  freer  hand  in  a  more  open  field, 
but  on  the  other  they  have  augmented  the  responsibilities 
and  in  some  respects  increased  the  difficulties  of  their  task. 


CHAPTER  XV 

FOREIGNERS   AND   FOREIGN  RELATIONS 

BY  the  Protocols  of  February  and  August,  1904,  and  still 
more  perfectly  by  the  Convention  of  November,  1905,  Japan 
became  the  sole  official  medium  for  communication  between 
Korea  and  all  other  foreign  Powers.  Indeed,  as  the  history 
of  the  relations  between  the  two  countries — already  narrated 
in  summary  form — abundantly  shows,  thus  much  of  control 
over  Korean  affairs  had  been  demonstrated  to  be  necessary 
for  the  welfare  of  both.  But  apart  from  considerations 
which  are  fitted  to  influence  the  judgment  of  either  Japanese 
or  Koreans,  the  question  arises:  How  is  the  Protectorate  of 
Japan  likely  to  affect  other  foreigners  in  their  relations  to 
Korea?  At  present  the  foreign  interests  concerned  in  the 
solution  of  the  general  problem  are  chiefly  of  two  orders: 
they  are  the  interests  of  trade  and  commerce,  and  the  mis- 
sionary interests.  The  larger  diplomatic  controversies, 
except  so  far  as  these  may  possibly  arise  in  adjusting  these 
two  classes  of  interests,  have  now,  it  would  seem,  been  satis- 
factorily arranged  for  some  time  to  come.  The  recent 
treaties  concluded  between  Japan  on  the  one  side,  and 
Great  Britain,  France,  and  Russia  on  the  other,  all  ex- 
pressly guarantee  respect  for  Japan's  control  over  the  penin- 
sula. In  addition  to  the  arrangement  for  a  sort  of  reciprocal 
"hands-off"  from  each  other's  possessions  and  "  paramount 
interests"  in  the  Far  East,  into  .which  France  and  Russia 
have  entered,  Great  Britain  has  pledged  her  support  in  de- 
fence of  the  Protectorate.  All  these  nations  have,  more- 

352 


FOREIGNERS  AND  FOREIGN  RELATIONS    353 

over,  solemnly  committed  themselves  to  the  maintenance  of 
the  integrity  of  the  Empire  of  China  and  to  the  policy  of  the 
so-called  "open  door."  How  unlikely  it  is,  then,  that  the 
Japanese  Government  should  proceed  at  once  to  violate 
treaty  obligations  which  it  has  itself  been  at  such  pains  and 
expense  of  men  and  money  to  secure,  and  the  maintenance 
of  which,  to  the  satisfaction  of  its  foreign  allies,  so  intimately 
concerns  its  own  future  welfare. 

These  same  Conventions  which  confer  certain  rights  upon 
the  Japanese  Government  in  Korea  just  as  plainly  put  this 
Government  under  certain  solemn  obligations.  The  foreign 
Powers  have,  strictly  speaking,  no  diplomatic  corps  at  Seoul. 
Their  Ambassadors  and  Ministers  at  Tokyo  are  their  repre- 
sentatives for  Korea  as  well  as  for  Japan.  All  foreign 
Powers  are  represented  by  officials  residing  in  the  capital 
city  of  Korea  who  have  consular  functions  only.  Since, 
however,  such  functions  must,  in  general,  be  exercised  on  the 
spot,  and  since  other  business  can  often  be  transacted  only 
there,  with  any  tolerable  degree  of  convenience,  the  Consuls 
at  Seoul  are  admitted  to  correspond  with  the  Residency- 
General  and  with  the  various  subordinate  Residencies. 
Naming  them  in  the  order  of  their  seniority,  Belgium,  China, 
Great  Britain,  Russia,  France,  and  the  United  States  are 
now  (in  1907)  each  represented  by  a  Consul- General,  and 
Italy  by  a  Consul.  "Where  foreign  rights  of  any  kind,"  says 
Mr.  Stevens — who  in  saying  this  speaks  both  as  Adviser  to 
the  Korean  Council  of  State  and  also  as  Counsellor  to  the 
Resident- General — "are  threatened  or  molested,  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  Japanese  Government  to  furnish  safeguards  or 
to  provide  a  remedy.  The  Japanese  Government  has  the 
right  to  employ  for  that  purpose  all  the  machinery  which  the 
laws  of  Korea  place  in  its  hands;  and  it  would  seem  logically 
to  follow,  also,  that  where  such  means  prove  inadequate,  it  is 
the  right,  as  well  as  the  duty,  of  the  Japanese  Government  to 


354  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

insist  that  the  deficiency  shall  be  supplied  by  appropriate 
legislation  or  by  such  other  method  as  may  be  reasonable 
and  just  under  the  circumstances." 

It  does  not  follow  from  this,  however,  that  either  the  rights 
of  the  Japanese  Government  allow,  or  their  obligations 
compel,  it  to  go  to  any  length  demanded  by  foreign  business 
men,  or  concessionaires,  or  even  by  foreign  missionaries,  in 
promoting  their  real  or  fancied  interests,  or  in  redressing 
their  fancied  as  well  as  their  real  wrongs.  There  are  plainly 
limits  to  be  observed  in  meeting  demands  and  requests  of 
this  character.  It  may  be  the  duty  of  the  Japanese  Govern- 
ment, for  example,  to  secure  and  defend  all  the  mining  and 
other  concessions  made  to  foreigners  which  can  prove  them- 
selves to  have  been  honestly  obtained  and  administered  in 
substantial  accord  with  the  initial  contract.  Inasmuch  as 
few  concessions  of  any  sort  among  those  obtained  from  the 
last  Emperor  can  stand  the  test  of  honesty,  or  even  of 
tolerable  freedom  from  corruption,  it  will  doubtless  be  well 
for  the  Japanese  Government  not  to  be  over-scrupulous  or 
too  curiously  enquiring  in  many  cases.  But  it  certainly  is 
not  its  duty  to  allow  the  Imperial  treasury  to  be  plundered 
ad  libitum  by  contracts  made,  and  concessions  obtained, 
through  combinations  of  corrupt  Korean  officials  with  greedy 
and  unscrupulous  foreigners.  Again:  it  may  be  the  duty 
of  the  Japanese  Government  to  protect  a  certain  "freedom 
of  the  press,"  in  the  case  of  publications  owned  and  managed 
by  foreigners,  even  if  printed  in  the  vernacular  and  distributed 
widely  among  the  more  ignorant  and  excitable  of  the  native 
population.  It  is  certainly  greatly  to  the  credit  of  the  Japanese 
officials  to  have  borne  so  quietly  the  slanderous  and  abusive 
attacks  upon  their  government  of  one  such  publication  in 
Seoul.  But  surely  there  may  be  a  limit  here  also.  Un- 
doubtedly that  limit  was  reached,  when  the  vernacular 
edition  of  this  publication  excited  the  natives  to  sedition, 


FOREIGNERS  AND  FOREIGN  RELATIONS    355 

revolt,  and  assassination,  especially  at  so  critical  a  juncture 
in  the  national  affairs  as  occurred  during  the  spring  and 
summer  of  1907.  Possibly,  there  is  also  a  limit  beyond 
which  misrepresentation  and  falsehood  directed  against 
individuals  not  connected  with  the  government  ought  not 
to  be  allowed  to  pass.1 

It  must  also  be  remembered  that  the  success  of  the  Resi- 
dency-General in  the  economic,  educational,  and  judicial 
reform  of  Korea  depends  largely  upon  husbanding  and 
developing  the  resources  of  Korea.  In  all  this,  Mr.  Megata, 
the  Financial  Adviser,  has  been  the  right-hand  man  of 
Marquis  Ito,  the  Resident-General.  If  these  resources  are 
squandered,  or  "conceded"  in  such  a  way  as  to  deprive  the 
Korean  Government  and  the  Korean  people  of  the  natural 
wealth  of  their  own  land,  then  the  plans  for  every  kind  of 
reform  will  be  crippled,  if  not  wholly  thwarted.  To  en- 
courage legitimate  business  with  all  nations  is  for  the  ad- 
vantage of  both  the  Japanese  and  the  Korean  Governments; 
such  a  policy  is  directly  in  the  line  of  Marquis  Ito's  intentions 

1  The  following  incident  illustrates  the  habitual  behavior  of  the  Korean 
Daily  News,  edited  by  Mr.  Bethell,  in  both  an  English  and  a  native 
edition.  Dr.  Jones,  one  of  the  most  faithful  and  useful  of  the  Mis- 
sionary body  in  Korea,  had  previously  incurred  the  bitter  enmity  of 
this  paper  by  publicly  announcing  (see  p.  61  f.)  the  intention  to  assist 
the  Resident-General  in  his  plans,  so  far  as  his  own  work  as  a  mis- 
sionary permitted,  for  the  up-raising  of  Korea.  At  the  time  when  the 
Korean  troops,  in  a  wholly  unprovoked  way,  fired  upon  the  crowd  in 
the  streets  of  Seoul,  Dr.  Jones  published  in  the  Seoul  Press  an  account 
of  what  he  himself  saw.  The  account  was  not  accompanied  by  any 
harsh  criticism  of  the  conduct  of  the  troops.  But  "shortly  afterwards 
a  Korean  attached  to  the  vernacular  paper  visited  him  and,  attacking 
him  fiercely,  denounced  him  as  an  enemy  of  Korea.  This  was  followed 
by  a  savage  attack  in  the  Korean  edition  of  the  News,  giving  an  en- 
tirely false  account  of  what  Dr.  Jones  had  done  and  said.  It  was  in 
fact  an  invitation  to  murder."  Dr.  Jones  at  once  appealed  to  the 
American  Consul-General  and  he  to  the  British.  The  editor  was 
forced  to  retract  and  apologize,  but  this  by  no  means  compensated  for 
the  damage  his  article  had  done. 


356  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

for  the  reform  and  unlifting  of  the  economic  condition  of  the 
peninsula.  No  one  person  would  suffer  so  severely  in  mind 
and  in  reputation  as  would  the  Resident- General  himself 
if  this  policy  failed  through  any  fault  of  his  own  or  of  his 
country's  administration  in  Korea.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 
to  check  the  evil  consequences  of  illegitimate  schemes  of  pro- 
motion already  accomplished,  and  to  prevent  the  initiation 
of  such  schemes  in  the  future,  is  an  equally  necessary  part 
of  this  policy. 

On  the  whole  subject  of  the  attitude  of  the  Japanese  Gov- 
ernment toward  foreign  business  interests  in  Korea  the  follow- 
ing lengthy  quotations  may  be  considered  as  authoritative: 

The  foreign  trade  of  Korea  has  been  steadily  increasing,  es- 
pecially during  the  past  six  years.  Making  due  allowance  for  the 
increase  of  imports  brought  about  by  the  war,  the  proportion  of 
normal  increase  gives  every  sign  of  healthy  growth.  Japan's 
trade  is  much  the  largest.  Korean  exports  go  almost  exclusively 
to  Japan,  except  ginseng,  which  is  sent  to  China.  Of  the  im- 
ports from  Japan  a  large  proportion  are  foreign,  as  Japan  is  put 
down  in  the  Customs  Returns  as  the  country  from  which  the 
importation  was  made,  the  country  of  origin  not  being  given. 
As  Japan  is  the  place  of  transhipment  for  much  of  the  trade,  and 
as  much  of  it  passes  through  Japanese  hands,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  differentiate.  There  are  certain  important  staples,  however, 
concerning  which  there  can  be  no  ambiguity — American  kerosene, 
for  example,  which  practically  monopolizes  the  market.  Rails 
and  railway  equipment  also  come  from  foreign  countries,  the  cars 
and  engines  from  the  United  States.  As  Korea  increases  in 
wealth  and  her  purchasing  capacity  grows  correspondingly,  there 
will  be  a  field  for  other  machinery,  modern  farming  implements 
among  the  rest,  no  doubt. 

American  and  European  enterprise  has  not  been  so  conspicuous 
in  the  field  of  ordinary  commercial  enterprise  as  in  other  direc- 
tions. Concessions  of  one  kind  and  another  have  attracted  more 
attention  than  trade  and  commerce.  The  most  conspicuous  and 


FOREIGNERS  AND  FOREIGN  RELATIONS    357 

successful  undertaking  of  this  kind  is  the  Oriental  Consolidated 
Mining  Company  at  Unsan  in  Northern  Korea,  originally  Amer- 
ican; now  it  is  generally  understood  to  be  largely  English  in 
ownership.  This  was  the  first  mining  concession  ever  granted  to 
foreigners  in  Korea.  His  Majesty  the  Emperor  was  originally  a 
half  owner  in  the  company,  but  sold  out  his  interest  for  300,000 
yen  and  a  payment  of  25,000  yen  per  annum.  The  company's 
concession  covers  a  large  area,  and  the  capital  is  $5,000,000, 
American  money.  At  the  outset  the  enterprise  did  not  look  very 
promising,  but  by  skilful  management  it  grew  until  it  reached  its 
present  important  proportions. 

It  would  probably  be  idle  to  attempt  an  analysis  of  the  advan- 
tages and  disadvantages  to  Korea  of  enterprises  of  this  kind. 
Certainly,  if  there  are  any  advantages,  the  Unsan  concession  should 
be  a  favorable  example.  That  it  has  been  of  great  advantage  to 
Korea  is  at  least  an  open  question.  On  the  one  side,  in  its  favor, 
may  be  set  the  large  amounts  annually  expended  by  the  company 
in  wages,  etc.  This  is  undoubtedly  a  good  thing  while  it  lasts; 
but  gold  mines  are  exhausted  sooner  or  later,  and  the  benefits 
they  confer  are  only  temporary.  The  abandoned  mining  sites  in 
America,  no  matter  how  prosperous  in  their  day,  can  hardly  be 
instanced  as  examples  of  prosperity  for  the  people  of  the  country 
in  which  they  are  located,  who  are  not  owners  of  successful  mines. 
.  ,  .  Against  this,  and  other  like  enterprises,  may  be  cited,  for 
one  thing,  the  disadvantage  of  the  wholesale  destruction  of  timber. 
The  country  about  Unsan  has  been  practically  denuded  of  timber, 
and  in  an  agricultural  country  like  Korea  this  is  undoubtedly  an 
evil. 

This  much  has  been  said  of  the  effects  of  the  operations  of  a 
successful  company,  conducted  on  a  conservative  basis,  merely  to 
show  that  the  advantages  of  the  development  of  Korean  resources 
about  which  so  much  has  been  said,  are  not  unmixed  blessings. 
The  matter  is  of  some  importance  in  the  light  of  all  that  has  been 
published  of  late  upon  the  subject.  .  .  .  English  and  German 
companies  each  obtained  a  mining  concession,  but  neither  proved 
financially  successful.  Japanese  also  obtained  one  concession,  in 
which  American  capital  is  at  present  interested.  .  .  .  The 


358  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

system  of  granting  mining  concessions  was  open  to  so  many 
objections  that  foreign  representatives  frequently  importuned 
the  Korean  Government  to  issue  mining  regulations  under 
which  the  mineral  resources  of  the  country  could  be  system- 
atically developed.  Nothing  was  done,  however,  until  after  the 
establishment  of  the  Residency-General,  when  a  mining  law  was 
passed.  This  law  provides  for  mining  under  proper  safeguards 
as  regards  public  and  private  interests.  Under  the  old  system,  or 
rather  lack  of  system,  the  concessionaire  could  do  practically 
what  he  pleased  within  the  limits  of  his  concession.  Now  he 
must  conform  to  laws  and  regulations  which  permit  him  to  carry 
on  his  business  under  conditions  which  promote  the  interests  and 
conserve  the  rights  of  all  concerned. 

The  business  methods  which  have  developed  in  Korea  since 
intercourse  with  foreigners  began  are  the  natural  outgrowth  of 
the  circumstances  and  of  the  practices  prevailing  before  that 
time.  Reference  is  not  here  intended  to  ordinary  commercial 
transactions,  but  to  that  species  of  business  which  has  its  rise  in 
government  favors  and  thrives  by  government  patronage.  In  a 
country  where  the  Government  is  the  fountain-head  of  favors  of 
every  description,  it  was  perhaps  inevitable  that  the  results  should 
be  those  which  we  see  in  Korea.  Viewed  from  the  most  favorable 
standpoint  they  certainly  leave  much  to  be  desired.  The  Gov- 
ernment, or,  as  has  really  been  the  actual  fact,  the  Emperor,  has 
been  persuaded  to  enter  into  a  number  of  business  enterprises, 
both  public  and  private,  not  a  single  one  of  which  has  been  suc- 
cessful and  every  one  of  which  has  been  the  occasion  of  loss  either 
to  the  public  treasury  or  to  His  Majesty's  privy  purse.  Under- 
takings of  various  kinds — wooden  manufactories,  glass  factories, 
railways,  etc. — have  been  projected,  but  have  gone  no  further  than 
the  stage  of  involving  the  employment  of  foreign  directors,  as- 
sistants, and  the  like,  and  have  stopped  there.  Sometimes  foreign 
experts  have  been  employed  who  were  really  capable  of  conducting 
the  business  for  which  their  services  were  secured.  They  have 
come  to  Korea,  only  to  discover  that  no  preparations  have  been 
made  to  carry  on  the  enterprises  with  which  they  were  to  be  con- 
nected. In  other  cases,  the  persons  engaged  to  oversee  the  pro- 


FOREIGNERS  AND  FOREIGN  RELATIONS    359 

jected  enterprises  have  been  notoriously  incompetent,  and  the 
whole  affair  has  smacked  largely  of  fraud  from  beginning  to  end. 
It  would  require  too  much  space  to  recount  the  various  under- 
takings of  a  public  nature  which  have  been  attempted  and  have 
ignominiously  failed.  The  result  has  been  monotonously  the  same 
in  every  instance — namely,  the  payment  by  the  Korean  Govern- 
ment of  large  sums  of  money  for  useless  material  and  for  services 
never  rendered.  Another  source  of  heavy  loss  has  been  the  con- 
tracts made  on  behalf  of  the  Government  for  all  sorts  of  things — 
rice  that  was  never  needed,  arms  and  ammunition  which  were 
worthless,  railroad  material  which  was  never  delivered,  and  so  on 
through  the  long  list  of  wasteful  expenditure  of  the  public  funds. 
It  is  something  hardly  capable  of  direct  proof,  but  there  is  no  reas- 
onable doubt  that  almost  every  one  of  these  enterprises  had  its 
inspiration  in  the  desire  for  illicit  gain  by  one  or  another  of  the 
officials  interested.  The  explanation  of  the  foreigners  interested 
may  be  summed  up  in  the  phrase,  "that  is  the  way  business  is 
done  in  Korea."  The  Empire  has  been  the  happy  hunting- 
ground  for  the  foreign  business  man  not  over-scrupulous  as  to  the 
methods  by  which  money  was  to  be  made.  Equally  it  has  held 
out  golden  opportunities  to  the  promoter  and  hunter  for  "  con- 
cessions." This  does  not  include  those  foreigners  who  are  willing 
to  take  the  chances  of  success  and  the  pecuniary  risks  inseparable 
from  enterprises  like  mining,  for  example,  but  that  other  class  of 
promoters  who  desire  to  get  something  for  nothing,  and  then  sell 
it  to  others.  The  gentlemen  who  have  so  much  to  say  about 
"enlisting  foreign  capital"  in  the  development  of  Korea's  re- 
sources will  generally  be  found  upon  investigation  to  be  prepared 
only  to  "enlist"  some  one  else's  capital.  The  promoter  has  his 
uses,  no  doubt,  and,  as  a  pioneer  in  new  fields,  unquestionably 
accomplishes  good  in  some  cases.  Unfortunately,  in  Korea  the 
results  of  his  activities  can  hardly  be  classed  in  this  category.  .  .  . 
Especially  is  this  true  of  those  enterprises  with  which  His 
Majesty  has  been  most  prominently  identified  as  an  investor.  As 
before  said,  they  have  invariably  resulted  in  heavy  losses  to  the 
privy  purse.  Various  explanations  have  been  given  for  this,  but 
the  fact  remains  and  cannot  be  disputed.  Others  have  pros- 


360  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

pered,  but  so  far  as  His  Majesty  is  concerned,  the  balance  has 
always  been  on  the  debit  side  of  the  ledger. 

If  it  were  necessary  to  multiply  instances  of  the  injury  done 
to  the  economic  interests  of  the  Korean  people,  and  of  the 
difficulty  of  adjusting  in  any  half-satisfactory  way  the  claims 
of  foreign  promoters  and  concessionaires,  it  could  easily  be 
done  upon  good  evidence.  But  mention  of  a  few  such  in- 
stances only — with  the  suppression  of  names  and  details,  for 
obvious  reasons — will  suffice  to  convince  the  reader,  however 
"patriotic"  in  such  matters,  who  has  even  the  semblance  of 
a  candid  mind.  Prominent  among  examples  is  that  of  a 
foreign  company  of  contractors,  who  have  obtained  from 
the  Korean  Government  a  variety  of  claims,  such  as  public- 
utility  franchises,  and  a  mining  concession.  Of  the  former, 
one  franchise  had  cost  the  Privy  Purse  of  the  Korean  Em- 
peror not  less  than  600,000  yen  up  to  1902;  and  when  it  was 
sold  to  satisfy  a  mortgage  held  by  these  same  contractors, 
although  Mr.  J.  McLeavy  Brown,  at  the  time  Commissioner- 
General  of  Customs,  who  had  been  appointed  to  audit  the 
accounts,  recommended  that  items  aggregating  1,100,000  yen 
should  be  disallowed,  and  gave  his  judgment  to  the  effect 
that  foreclosure  would  be  a  grave  injustice  to  His  Majesty, 
the  latter  was  induced  to  buy  one-half  of  the  property  at 
750,000  yen.  The  whole  of  the  same  property  not  long  be- 
fore had  been  offered  at  800,000  yen!  This  public  utility 
still  fails  to  yield  a  dollar  in  dividends  to  the  royal  in- 
vestor. 

Another  franchise  of  this  same  company  has  been  sold, 
without  any  investment  o£  capital  on  their  part,  to  an  English 
company  for  £15,000  cash  and  £50,000  in  fully  paid-up 
ordinary  shares.  Under  the  apparent  impression  that  they 
have  even  yet  not  sufficiently  profited  from  the  Privy  Purse 
of  the  Emperor  and  the  national  treasury  of  this  poverty- 


FOREIGNERS  AND  FOREIGN  RELATIONS    361 

stricken  land,  the  same  company  is  bringing  all  possible 
" influence"  to  bear  in  order  to  validate  their  claims  to  a 
"  Mining  Concession."  With  regard  to  this  last  claim,  which 
is  still  contested,  it  is  enough  for  our  purposes  to  say  that  it 
was  surreptitiously  obtained;  that  the  stipulation  which  re- 
quired a  capital  of  $1,000,000  fully  paid  up  at  the  time  of 
incorporation  has  been  violated;  and  that  the  provision 
which  guarantees  that  no  other  mining  concession  should  be 
made  to  any  one,  native  or  foreign,  until  these  concession- 
aires had  made  their  choice,  is  plainly  contra  bonos  mores. 
Moreover,  negotiations  have  been  entered  into  by  this 
company  for  the  sale  of  this  concession  to  another  foreign 
syndicate. 

The  mining  claim  of  these  foreign  promoters,  although  it 
has  not  yet  been  wholly  adjusted  is,  indeed,  a  cause  c'elebre 
on  account  of  the  large  sums  involved;  but  it  only  illustrates 
a  special  combination  of  the  elements  which  are  found,  with 
a  difference  of  mixture,  in  all  the  cases  of  this  general  char- 
acter. There  was  the  foolish  and  wanton  Emperor,  who  has 
little  intelligent  care  for  the  material  or  other  interests  of  his 
people;  the  crafty  and  corrupt  Koreans,  officials  and  ex- 
officials;  the  land  rich  in  unexplored  and  undeveloped  re- 
sources, and  the  "enterprising"  foreigner,  unscrupulous  as 
to  his  methods  and  ready  to  utilize — either  truly  or  falsely — 
his  alleged  " influence"  with  the  officials  of  his  own  Govern- 
ment. Another  case,  in  which  all  the  participants  were 
Koreans  with  the  exception  of  one  foreigner,  has  also  been 
charged  to  the  account  of  the  Japanese  Government  on  the 
debit  side.  This  foreigner,  having  put  forth  the  claim  to  be 
a  mining  engineer  (he  was  in  truth  only  a  miner — a  so-called 
"three-^m-a-day"  man),  associated  himself  with  a  Korean, 
popularly  known  as  "Pak  the  liar,"  and  through  the  latter 
obtained  the  assistance  at  Court  of  a  powerful  official  and  his 
friends.  A  " company"  was  formed,  which  obtained  from 


362  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

the  Emperor  an  elaborate  document  of  the  ''franchise"  sort, 
giving  them  the  exclusive  right  to  find  coal-oil  where  no 
coal-oil  was,  to  bottle  mineral  water  from  springs  which  have 
no  valuable  qualities  to  their  water,  and  to  export  coal  which 
was  totally  unfit  for  export.  Appeals  were  constantly  made, 
and  answered,  for  funds  to  further  this  enterprise,  until  His 
Majesty  became  tired,  and  the  whole  affair  was  wound  up. 
This  was  done  by  paying  the  foreigner  12,000  yen  claimed  as 
back  pay.  He  then  departed  to  his  native  land  to  complain 
that  the  Japanese  were  inimical  to  the  investment  of  foreign 
capital  in  Korea.  The  net  result  was  a  few  thousand  tons  of 
coal  taken  from  one  small  mine — sold,  but  the  proceeds  never 
accounted  for;  an  expenditure  from  the  Privy  Purse  variously 
estimated  at  from  300,000  yen  to  400,000  yen;  and  the  en- 
richment of  certain  Korean  officials  and  ex-officials.  For 
all  this  Mr.  Megata,  the  Japanese  Financial  Adviser,  had 
to  provide  the  money.  The  "Poong  Poo"  Company 
itself  never  had  any  money  to  put  into  its  " promoting" 
schemes. 

That  the  charge  of  favoring  their  own  countrymen  in  the 
matter  of  concessions  and  monopolies,  which  has  been  some- 
what freely  made  abroad  against  the  Japanese  Government 
in  Korea,  is  not  justifiable,  the  following  proof  may  be  cited. 
At  some  time  between  January  15  and  January  29  of  1905, 
Mr.  Yi-chai-kuk,  then  Minister  of  the  Imperial  Household  of 
Korea,  recognized  and  signed  no  fewer  than  twenty-three 
concessions  granted  to  one  Yi-Sei-chik,  a  Korean,  and  his 
four  Japanese  associates.  These  concessions  included  the 
consolidation  of  taxation  on  land,  the  utilization  of  the 
water-ways  for  various  purposes,  and  state  monopolies  of 
tobacco,  salt,  kerosene,  etc.  Imperial  orders  were  secretly 
given  to  the  same  Yi  to  raise  a  foreign  loan  of  several 
million  yen  for  the  purpose  of  detecting  the  secrets  of 
the  Military  Headquarters  stationed  in  Korea,  as  well  as 


FOREIGNERS  AND  FOREIGN  RELATIONS    363 

of  the   Tokyo    Government,  and    to   make   reports  about 
them.1 

These  iniquitous  transactions  in  which  Koreans  and  Jap- 
anese were  concerned  were  made,  when  discovered,  the  occa- 
sion of  a  memorandum  of  protest.  This  memorandum  re- 
minded the  Korean  Government  and  Court  that  they  have 
often  been  unfaithful  to  the  "general  plan  of  administrative 
reform,"  based  upon  the  compact  made  between  Korea  and 
Japan,  by  granting  to  foreigners  various  important  conces- 
sions in  secret  ways.  "With  a  view  of  putting  an  end  to 
any  further  recurrence  of  such  complications,  an  express 
Agreement  was  entered  into,  August,  1904,  by  which  "it 
was  stipulated  that,  in  case  of  granting  concessions  to  foreign- 
ers, or  of  making  contracts  with  foreigners,  the  Imperial 
Governments  should  first  be  informed  and  consulted  with." 
The  memorandum  then  goes  on  to  express  profound  regret 
that  "His  Majesty  and  his  Court"  had  attempted  by  these 
concessions,  "in  defiance  of  this  provision,  a  breach  of  faith." 
Then  follows  the  demand  upon  the  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs  of  Korea  to  take  the  following  steps: — 

1.  The   Minister   for   Foreign   Affairs,   after   stating   to  His 
Majesty  the  above  facts  and  reasons,  shall  announce  in  a  most 
public  way  under  the  Imperial  order  that  the  concessions  above 
mentioned  are  null  and  void,  as  they  have  failed  to  observe  the 
provisions  of  the  Agreement  between  Korea  and  Japan. 

2.  It  shall  also  be  most  publicly  announced  under  the  Im- 
perial order  that,  in  any  case  of  granting  concessions  to  foreigners, 
either  the  Korean  Government  or  the  Court  shall  first  consult 
with  the  Imperial  Government. 

This  memorandum  bears  date  of  July  n,  1905.  But  this 
instance  of  the  most  decisive  steps  taken  by  the  Japanese 

1  This  fact  has  been  clearly  proven  by  papers  found  on  the  body  of 
Yi-Sei-chik,  when  he  was  afterward  arrested  and  detained  at  head- 
quarters, as  well  as  by  his  personal  statements. 


364  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Government  to  prevent  its  own  subjects  from  profiting  by 
secret  and  corrupt  alliance  with  Korean  officials,  for  the  ob- 
taining of  concessions  and  contracts,  is  by  no  means  an 
isolated  one.  In  truth,  the  Japanese  Protectorate  is  more 
severe  in  dealing  with  such  cases  where  Japanese  are  con- 
cerned, than  where  other  foreigners  have  the  chief  interests. 
And  repeatedly  has  the  Resident- General  assured  his  own 
countrymen  that  they  must  expect  no  favors  in  business 
schemes  for  exploiting  Korea  to  their  own  advantage,  but  to 
the  injury  of  the  Koreans  themselves.  Indeed,  he  has 
publicly  declared  to  all  such  Japanese:  "  You  have  me  for 
your  enemy" 

More  recently  effective  measures  have  been  enacted  and 
put  into  force  to  make  impossible  the  recurrence  of  the  old- 
time  ways  of  robbing  Korea  by  schemes  for  " promoting" 
her  business  enterprises  and  by  secret  ways  of  obtaining 
concessions.  Among-  such  measures  is  the  safeguarding  of 
the  "Imperial  black  seal"  (the  Emperor's  private  seal), 
which  could  formerly  be  used  to  plunder  the  treasury  with- 
out the  knowledge  or  consent  of  its  legalized  guardians,  or 
even  of  the  Emperor  himself.  Under  the  new  regulations, 
the  black  seal  cannot  be  legally  used  except  with  the  knowl- 
edge and  attestation  of  the  Minister  of  the  Household  and 
his  Imperial  Treasurer. 

Among  the  other  foreign  relations  into  which  Japan  has 
entered,  to  substitute  for  Korea,  is  the  protection  of  Korean 
emigrants.  Although  Korea  needs,  and  can  for  a  long 
time  to  come  support,  all  its  own  natural  increase  of 
native  population,  and  .several  millions  of  foreign  immigrants 
besides,  the  complete  lack  of  opportunity  for  "getting  ahead" 
in  their  native  land  caused  a  considerable  exodus  of  her  own 
population  some  six  or  seven  years  ago.  At  the  instance  of 
an  American,  about  8,000  Korean  men  and  400  Korean 
women  emigrated  to  Hawaii.  In  1905  a  Mexican  prevailed 


FOREIGNERS  AND  FOREIGN  RELATIONS    365 

upon  1,300  natives  to  go  to  Mexico.  This  experience  led  the 
Korean  Government,  in  April,  1905,  to  issue  an  order  pro- 
hibiting the  emigration  of  Korean  laborers.  Under  the 
Japanese  Protectorate,  however,  in  July,  1906,  "An  Emi- 
grant Protection  Law,"  with  detailed  rules  for  its  operation, 
was  enacted,  which  came  into  force  on  the  i5th  of  September 
of  the  same  year. 

With  regard  to  all  foreign  relations  with  Korea,  whether  of 
legitimate  business,  of  commerce,  or  of  emigration,  the  civi- 
lized world  is  undoubtedly  much  better  off  now  that  their 
custody  is  in  the  hands  of  the  Japanese  Residency- General. 
In  our  judgment  the  same  thing  is  true  of  those  moral  and 
religious  interests  represented  by  the  missionary  bodies  al- 
ready established,  or  to  be  established  in  the  future,  in  the 
Korean  peninsula.  This  is  not,  indeed,  the  opinion  of  all 
the  missionaries  themselves.  As  regards  the  whole  subject 
of  the  effect  of  the  Protectorate  upon  mission  work — past, 
present,  and  future — there  is  a  difference  of  opinion  among 
the  missionaries  themselves.  As  to  the  attitude  of  Marquis 
Ito  there  can  be  no  reasonable  doubt.  His  expressions  of 
feeling  and  intention  have  been  frequently  mentioned  in  the 
earlier  chapters  of  this  book.  The  missionary  problem  will 
be  discussed,  apart,  in  a  later  chapter. 

As  to  the  general  feeling  of  the  Koreans  themselves  toward 
foreigners,  the  following  quotations  are  believed  to  express 
the  truth; 

Since  the  inauguration  of  foreign  intercourse  the  anti-foreign 
feeling  of  which  the  Tai  Won  Kun  was  so  prominent  an  exponent, 
appears  to  have  died  out.  Possibly  it  may  linger  still  in  the  minds 
of  some  of  the  old-fashioned  Confucian  scholars,  but  not  to  any 
appreciable  extent.  Formerly  it  was,  no  doubt,  possible  to  excite 
the  people  against  foreigners  for  slight  cause;  but  exhibitions  of 
anti-foreign  sentiment  in  recent  times  appear  to  have  been 
officially  instigated,  as,  for  example,  the  massacre  of  the  French 


366  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

missionaries  and  their  converts,  for  which  the  Tai  Won  Kim  is 
held  responsible.  More  intimate  intercourse  with  the  representa- 
tives of  Western  civilization,  and  especially  missionary  labor 
which  has  been  so  genuinely  successful,  seem  to  have  eliminated 
anything  like  a  general  feeling  of  dislike  for  foreigners. 

The  case  of  the  Japanese  stands  by  itself  in  this  regard.  Much 
has  been  written  of  the  ancient  hatred  of  Koreans  for  Japanese. 
Traces  of  that  feeling  may  linger,  but  that  it  is  an  ineradicable 
national  trait,  as  some  would  seem  to  hold,  hardly  seems  pos- 
sible. Koreans  and  Japanese  have  lived  together  in  complete 
amity  and  good  fellowship  in  the  past,  and  there  is  no  good  reason 
why  they  should  not  live  side  by  side  on  the  best  of  terms  in  the 
future.  Certainly  none  in  the  sentiment  of  dislike  on  one  side, 
for  the  origin  of  which  we  must  go  back  nearly  three  centuries. 
The  practical  difficulty,  the  dislike  which  really  counts,  is  of  more 
modern  origin.  Korea  and  Japan  have  been  jostled  together,  as 
it  were,  by  two  wars  in  recent  times,  and  the  weaker  of  the  two 
has  suffered — a  circumstance  to  be  regretted,  no  doubt,  but  still 
inevitable.  Korea  has  experienced  some  of  the  evils  which  follow 
in  war's  train;  and  while  they  were  not  nearly  so  disastrous  as 
has  been  represented,  they  have  left  a  feeling  of  dislike  and  dis- 
trust for  those  who  are  held  responsible.  This  was  to  have  been 
expected  and  counted  upon;  for  the  remedy  we  must  await  the 
wider  and  more  intelligent  comprehension  of  the  real  meaning  of 
the  new  order  of  things.  When  it  is  finally  understood  that  even- 
handed  justice  is  the  rule,  that  the  life  and  property  of  every  man, 
no  matter  how  humble,  are  safe  under  the  law,  and  that  the  pres- 
ence of  the  alien  does  not  mean  licensed  extortion  and  oppression, 
we  shall  not  hear  anything  more  of  that  racial  hatred  upon  which 
so  much  stress  has  been  laid. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
WRONGS:    REAL  AND  FANCIED 

AMONG  the  many  embarrassments  encountered  by  Marquis 
Ito  as  Japanese  Resident-General  in  his  efforts  to  reform 
and  elevate  Korea,  there  is  perhaps  no  one  more  persistent 
and  hard  to  overcome  than  the  charges  of  fraud  and  violence 
made  against  his  own  countrymen.  These  charges  come 
from  various  sources  and  are  promulgated  in  a  variety  of 
ways.  Sometimes  they  take  the  form  of  a  book — as,  for 
example,  Mr.  Hulbert's  "Passing  of  Korea."  For  months 
the  Korean  Daily  News,  under  the  editorship  of  Mr.  Bethell, 
in  both  its  native  and  its  English  editions,  filled  its  daily 
columns  with  complaints,  wearisomely  reiterated  after-  they 
had  been  repeatedly  disproved,  or  made  anew  on  insufficient 
grounds  and  even  without  any  trustworthy  evidence  what- 
ever. In  scarcely  less  degree,  the  same  thing  has  been  true 
of  certain  English  papers  printed  outside  of  Korea,  especially 
in  China.  More  effective  still  in  producing  an  impression 
abroad,  but  not  more  trustworthy,  have  been  the  published 
letters  of  many  travellers  and  newspaper  correspondents. 
Conspicuous  among  the  latter  class  was  the  letter  of  Mr. 
William  T.  Ellis  to  the  New  York  Tri-Weekly  Tribune,  in 
which  it  was  stated  that,  under  the  then  existing  Japanese 
Government,  "robbery,  abuse,  oppression,  injustice,  and 
even  murder  are  the  lot  of  the  Korean  common  people."1 

1  This  serious  charge  was  made  by  the  writer  and  published  to  a 
friendly  nation,  on  the  basis  of  no  personal  knowledge,  not  to  say  care- 
ful investigation,  and  after  casual  conversation  with  a  small  number  of 
witnesses  who  belong  to  the  class  peculiarly  liable  to  be  deceived  both 
as  to  facts  and  as  to  causes  of  such  alleged  incidents. 

367 


368  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Most  deplorable1  of  all  are  the  hasty  and  inconsiderate  charges 
believed  on  exaggerated  or  wholly  false  accounts  of  the 
Koreans  themselves,  and  propagated  by  the  relatively  small 
body  of  missionaries  who  have  remained — for  reasons  to 
be  considered  subsequently — in  an  attitude  of  open  or  secret 
hostility  to  the  Japanese  Protectorate. 

The  charges  against  the  Japanese  of  violence  and  fraud 
in  Korea  may  be  divided  into  four  classes:  those  which  are 
important  and  true;  those  which  are  trivial  and  only  partly 
true;  those  which  are  exaggerated;  and  those  which  are 
wholly  false.  Of  the  first  kind  there  are  a  few  only;  of  the 
second  there  are  many;  of  the  third  there  are  even  a  greater 
number;  and  of  the  fourth  there  are  not  a  few.  In  judging 
the  conduct  of  the  Japanese  Government  and  its  officials 
of  all  ranks  and  classes,  as  distinguished  from  the  conduct 
of  adventurous  and  unscrupulous  individual  Japanese,  the 
material  and  social  condition  of  affairs  in  the  peninsula  during 
and  immediately  after  the  Russo-Japanese  war  cannot  fairly 
be  left  out  of  the  account.  One  complaint  brought  by  its 
most  unsympathetic  critics  against  the  Government  is  that 
it  did  not  foresee  the  influx  of  undesirable  characters  into 
Korea  during  the  war  and  make  sufficient  provision  for  their 
control.  But  precisely  the  opposite  of  this  complaint  is  true. 
The  military  and  other  coolies  and  camp-followers  had  given 
much  trouble  and  embarrassment  to  the  Japanese  officials 
in  the  war  with  China.  Accordingly,  the  military  authorities 
determined  at  the  beginning  of  the  war  with  Russia  to  avoid 
such  complications  by  composing  the  military  train  wholly 
of  enlisted  men.  Thus  many  recruits — students,  profes- 
sional men,  and  tradesmen — who  did  not  come  up  to  the 
standard  set  for  the  soldier,  or  who  were  not  ready  for  service 

1  Deplorable,  on  account  of  its  effect,  direct  and  indirect,  upon  the 
Koreans,  upon  Marquis  Ito's  efforts  at  reform,  and  upon  the  mis- 
sionary cause  in  Japan  as  well  as  Korea, 


WRONGS:  REAL  AND  FANCIED  369 

in  the  ranks,  served  as  cart-pullers,  burden-bearers,  and  in 
other  laborious  and  humble  ways.  The  conduct  of  the 
army,  and  of  the  enlisted  men  generally,  in  Korea  and 
Manchuria,  was  so  admirable  as  to  call  out  the  quite  unex- 
ampled approval  of  all  candid  observers.  Looting  was 
almost  absolutely  prevented;  the  extremely  rare  cases  of 
rape  were  punished  with  death  as  soon  as  the  offence  was 
proved;  violence  or  insult  toward  all  non-combatants  was 
of  rare  occurrence;  and  the  treatment  of  the  Russian  prison- 
ers of  war  evoked  the  gratitude  of  the  prisoners  themselves. 
In  all  these  respects,  the  difference  between  the  Japanese 
and  the  Chinese  and  Russians  was  indeed  remarkable. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war  the  Tokyo  government,  per- 
ceiving that  the  civil  authorities  in  Korea  were  already  over- 
burdened with  labors  consequent  upon  the  great  influx  of 
Japanese — many  of  them  belonging  to  the  lower  classes — 
proposed  a  bill  to  establish  new  courts  and  an  increased  force 
of  police.  In  the  pressure  of  important  business  connected 
with  the  life-or-death  struggle  in  which  Japan  was  then 
engaged,  the  bill  did  not  pass.  A  Police  Adviser  to  the 
Korean  Government  was,  however,  appointed.  What  must 
have  been  the  complete  incompetency  of  the  Korean  magis- 
trates and  police  at  such  a  time  of  confusion  may  be  faintly 
imagined  by  one  who — like  the  author — has  seen  how  in- 
effectively they  still  discharged  their  functions,  for  the  pro- 
tection of  their  own  officials  and  for  the  maintenance  of 
order  in  the  country,  at  the  time  of  his  visit  in  the  spring  of 
1907.  It  would  have  been  strange,  then,  if  anything  ap- 
proaching an  even-handed  justice  through  the  courts,  or  a 
complete  condition  of  order  by  fear  of  the  police,  could  have 
been  secured  in  Korea  in  1904  and  1905.  No  such  justice 
or  order  has  ever  existed  in  this  land  of  misrule.  Japan 
secured  it  during  the  occupation  of  war,  so  far  as  its  own 
enlisted  men  were  concerned;  but  its  rights  as  "Protector" 


370  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

were  not  fully  gained  and  defined  until  after  the  close  of  the 
war. 

Among  the  most  serious  of  the  charges  which  are  important 
and,  in  certain  instances,  true,  is  that  made  against  the  mili- 
tary authorities  for  the  appropriation  of  lands  for  military 
and  railway  uses,  to  an  unreasonable  extent,  and  in  unfair 
ways.  "There  can  be  no  question,"  says  Mr.  D.  W.  Stevens, 
"that  at  the  outset  the  military  authorities  in  Korea  did 
intimate  an  intention  of  taking  more  land  for  these  uses 
than  seemed  reasonable.  They  proceeded  upon  the  principle 
that  the  Korean  Government  had  bound  itself  to  grant  all 
land  necessary  for  railway  and  military  uses,  and  itself  to 
indemnify  the  owners — an  assumption  which  was  technically 
correct.  But  the  owners,  knowing  the  custom  of  their  own 
government  under  such  circumstances,  were  hopeless  of 
obtaining  anything  like  adequate  redress.  This,  it  should  be 
remembered,  happened  during  the  war,  when  martial  law 
was  in  the  ascendant."  When  peace  came,  other  counsels 
prevailed;  the  intention  to  appropriate  additional  large  tracts 
was  abandoned;  and  the  amount  staked  off  for  military 
purposes  was  greatly  reduced — was,  indeed,  in  several 
instances,  made  only  a  fraction  of  the  original  amount.  For 
all  the  domain  granted  or  appropriated  by  the  Korean 
Government  there  has  already  accrued  to  the  country,  in 
transportation  facilities  and  other  economic  and  political 
advantages,  far  more  than  its  actual  value  at  the  time  of  its 
granting  or  appropriation.  For  the  private  land  owned  by 
Koreans  a  fair  price  was  paid  in  the  majority  of  cases.  The 
prohibition  of  the  owners  within  the  delimited  areas  to  sell 
their  lands  and  houses  was  designed  to  prevent  prior  purchase 
by  speculators  and  other  indirect  attempts  to  obtain  extrava- 
gant prices.  The  military  authorities,  under  the  pressure  of 
what  they  regarded  as  necessity,  solved  these  difficulties  in 
the  military  way — a  way  that  certainly  does  not  commend 


WRONGS:  REAL  AND  FANCIED  371 

itself  to  civilians  in  times  of  peace,  but  which  has  been 
employed  too  often  by  all  the  other  civilized  nations  to  enable 
them  to  cast  stones  freely  at  the  Japanese..  Even  by  these 
high-handed  measures  they  could  not  avoid,  in  certain  cases, 
paying  much  more  for  land  owned  by  foreigners  than  it  was 
really  worth.1 

It  must  further  be  confessed  that  a  considerable  number 
of  Japanese  sharpers — for  the  most  part  usurious  money- 
lenders— have  obtained  land  from  Koreans  in  unjust  and 
oppressive  ways.  This  species  of  robbery  is  made  the  more 
difficult  to  detect  and  punish  for  the  following  reasons: 
The  Korean  customs  and  laws  concerning  the  transference 
of  titles  to  land  are  inadequate  and  confusing  (for  this  reason, 
some  of  the  landed  property  belonging  to  other  foreigners 
than  the  Japanese,  and  even  to  the  missionary  bodies,  would 
have  no  little  difficulty  in  establishing  title) ;  the  Koreans  are 
given  to  issuing  false  and  forged  deeds,  or  in  their  ignorance 
claiming  title  and  conferring  title  where  no  such  right  ex- 
ists; finally,  in  numerous  instances,  both  Korean  »or  foreign 
'"squatters"  (see  p.  295  f.)  and  the  government  or  some  of  its 
officials  are  asserting,  either  honestly  or  fraudulently,  their 
holding  of  good  title  to  the  same  piece  of  land.  On  all  this 
class  of  offences  we  may  trust  implicitly  the  statement  of  the 
foreign  official  (an  American)  whose  duty  has  led  him  to 
examine  into  a  large  number  of  these  cases:  "The  theft  of 

1  It  has  been  asserted  that  the  value  of  the  land  staked  off  by  the 
Japanese  military  authorities  near  Seoul  was  6,000,000  yen.  As  the 
result  of  a  "painstaking  and  impartial  investigation"  it  was  found  that, 
at  the  highest  market  price,  this  land  would  not  have  brought  more 
than  750,000  to  1,000,000  yen.  The  Korean  way  in  such  matters  is 
well  illustrated  by  the  experience  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Asso- 
ciation in  Seoul,  who,  when  one  small  piece  of  land  was  needed  to 
complete  their  site,  were  obliged  to  invoke  an  official  order  preventing 
the  sale  to  any  other  party;  and  even  then  paid  a  price  probably  two 
or  three  times  its  true  market  value.  Compare  also  what  is  said,  p.  98  f., 
about  the  Pyeng-yang  affair. 


372  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

land  by  eviction,  false  deeds,  etc.,"  says  this  authority,  "is 
another  offence  upon  which  great  stress  has  been  laid.  Un- 
doubtedly there  were  a  number  of  cases  of  this  kind,  although 
here  again  exaggeration  has  been  at  work.  The  commonest 
instances  were  those  where  money-lenders  were  concerned; 
and,  in  these  cases,  as  in  almost  all  others  of  the  kind,  Koreans 
were  associated  in  some  way  or  other  with  the  frauds  which 
were  perpetrated.  A  spendthrift  son  or  nephew  would  give 
false  title-deeds,  or  even  pawn  the  genuine  ones  without 
authority;  a  Korean  rascal  would  conspire  with  a  Japanese 
of  the  same  kidney  to  defraud  other  Koreans,  and  so  on 
through  the  long  gamut  of  fraud  wherein  Korean  connivance 
was  an  indispensable  prerequisite  to  success.  The  offences 
relating  to  land  have  now  been  rendered  practically  impossible 
through  the  promulgation  of  land  regulations  by  the  Residency- 
General." 

In  a  word,  offences  of  this  kind  committed  by  the  Japanese 
against  the  Koreans,  however  numerous  and  grievous  they 
may  have  been,  have  proved  short-lived;  they  were  formerly 
due  to  the  disturbed  conditions  of  a  period  of  war,  and 
will  now  speedily  be  brought  to  an  end.  Summing  them  all 
up,  and  even  without  making  allowance  for  exaggerations, 
the  cry  of  the  Koreans  against  the  Japanese  on  the  charge  of 
fraud  and  oppression  touching  their  land  is  only  as  a  drop  to 
a  good-sized  bucket  compared  with  the  cry  of  the  Irish  against 
the  English,  or  of  the  Koreans  themselves  against  their  own 
countrymen.  The  wrongs  are  small  indeed  as  compared 
with  those  which  have  characterized  the  behavior  of  Amer- 
icans against  Americans  in  our  own  West.1 

1  What  is  the  state  of  the  case  in  certain  portions  of  the  West  is  truth- 
fully told  in  the  following  paragraph  quoted  from  a  popular  journal: 
"In  the  matter  of  cheating  Indians  and  acquiring  public  lands  in  ways 
which  bear  all  the  ethical  aspects  of  theft,  there  is  no  public  or  private 
morality  either  in  Oklahoma  or  any  other  of  those  Western  States 
where  Indians  and  public  lands  continue  to  exist." 


WRONGS:  REAL  AND  FANCIED  373 

Of  brutal  and  murderous  assaults  from  Japanese  upon 
Korean  men  and  women  there  are  indeed  instances;  but 
the  cases  prove  on  examination  to  have  been  by  no  means 
frequent.  They  have  been,  on  the  whole,  fewer  than  such 
crimes  are  accustomed  to  be  between  peoples  of  two  nations 
similarly  placed.  Indeed,  they  have  been  fewer  than  those 
occurring  to-day  between  different  classes  and  different 
nationals  in  many  of  the  civilized  countries  of  the  Western 
World.  They  bear  no  comparison  to  the  horrors  which 
have  for  centuries  been  familiar  in  most  of  the  Orient,  in- 
cluding Korea  itself.  "Wholesale  military  executions,"  for 
example,  of  the  Koreans  who  tore  up  the  track  of  the  military 
railroad  have  been  charged  against  the  Japanese  as  virtually 
murders.  But  during  the  entire  war  there  was  never  a 
single  instance  of  what  is  known  as  "drum-head  court 
martial"  of  a  Korean  for  such  an  offence.  After  the  trial  the 
evidence  in  each  case  was  transmitted  to  the  Headquarters  at 
Seoul,  where  the  case  was  confirmed,  modified,  or  reversed. 
The  Japanese  military  authorities  consented  to  have  a  Korean 
official  present  at  each  trial  as  an  amicus  curia  of  the  defend- 
ant; but  the  Korean  Government  declined  to  be  represented 
and  claimed  that  all  such  cases  should  be  tried  before  their 
own  officials  only.  What  would  have  been  the  outcome  of 
such  a  committal  of  the  most  vital  military  interests  of  Japan 
to  Korean  magistrates  it  needs  no  great  amount  of  experience 
to  judge.  A  Korean,  for  example,  who  had  been  arrested  by 
a  Japanese  gendarme  and  taken  before  a  native  magistrate 
was  duly  punished  for  "throwing  a  stone  at  the  railway!" 
But  on  his  being  rearrested  and  tried  before  a  military  court 
it  was  established  that  the  man  had  been  repeatedly  con- 
victed of  piling  stones  upon  the  track  with  a  view  to  wreck  the 
trains  conveying  the  Japanese  soldiers;  whereupon  the  sen- 
tence of  the  military  court  was  confirmed  from  Headquarters 
and  the  man  was  quite  properly  executed. 


374  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Of  the  killing  of  Koreans,  unprovoked  and  without  the 
excuse  of  self-defence,  by  Japanese,  there  have  been  at  no 
time  any  considerable  number  of  cases.  Indeed,  the  murders 
of  men  and  women  of  the  other  nationality,  while  in  the  quiet 
discharge  of  their  official  duty  or  in  their  homes,  have  been 
far  more  numerous.  This  was  especially  true  while  the 
country  was  stirred  to  riot  and  bloodshed  by  the  abdication 
of  the  Emperor  in  July,  1907,  and  by  the  disbandment  of 
the  Korean  army,  when  mistaken  or  feigned  "patriotism" 
was  showing  itself  in  the  customary  Korean  way.  But  that 
there  is  nothing  new  about  all  this,  a  reference  to  chapters 
which  have  sketched  (IX  and  X)  the  history  of  the  relations 
of  the  countries  in  the  past  centuries  will  abundantly  show. 

Of  serious  and  unprovoked  assaults  of  Koreans  by  Jap- 
anese there  have  been,  doubtless,  a  considerable  number. 
It  would  be  impossible  to  tell  just  how  many,  even  as  a  result 
of  the  most  patient  and  candid  investigation ; — if  for  no  other 
reason,  because  the  Korean  habit  of  exaggeration  and  lying 
renders  almost  all  the  uncorroborated  testimony  of  the 
natives  untrustworthy.  This  experience  with  official  lying 
to  cover  their  own  countrymen  against  the  demands  of 
foreigners  for  justice,  or  to  enforce  indemnity  in  cases  of 
false  charges  made  against  foreigners  for  assault  on  Koreans, 
is  not  confined  to  the  Japanese.  It  is  the  common  experience 
with  all  Korean  judicial  procedure.1 

Among  the  more  serious  unproved  charges  against  Japan- 

1  On  one  occasion  the  British  and  Chinese  Ministers  jointly  urged 
the  payment  of  indemnity  in  the  case  of  two  Chinamen,  one  a  British 
protege ',  who  had  been  injured  in  a  fight  with  tax-collecting  officials  at 
a  place  to  which  Chinese  junks  were  in  the  habit  of  resorting.  The 
British  protege  had  died  of  his  wounds,  both  he  and  his  companion 
having  been  confined  after  the  fight  in  the  magistrate's  yamen.  The 
Korean  local  officials  contended  that  only  one  person  had  been  killed 
— namely,  the  wounded  Chinaman.  When  confronted  with  the  fact 
that,  according  to  their  own  report,,  there  was  a  dead  Chinaman  in  the 


WRONGS:  REAL  AND  FANCIED  375 

ese  officials  was  that  of  torturing  Korean  prisoners  by  Jap- 
anese gendarmes  at  the  time  of  the  so-called  "cleansing"  of 
the  Palace.  Mr.  Hulbert  published  this  charge  and  specified, 
on  the  authority  of  "  numerous  witnesses,"  the  exact  char- 
acter of  .the  torture — namely,  by  a  kind  of  iron  instrument 
designed  to  squeeze  the  head.  Immediately  Marquis  Ito 
took  up  the  matter  and  sent  a  messenger  to  Mr.  Hulbert  to 
express  his  earnest  desire  to  probe  the  matter  thoroughly; 
and  his  intention,  in  case  the  charge  was  proved,  to  punish 
the  offenders  severely.  This  request  implied,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  the  pledge  of  protection  to  the  witnesses;  and  Mr. 
Hulbert  agreed  to  furnish  the  evidence.  But  when  this 
could  not  be  done,  the  excuse  was  first  offered  that  the  wit- 
nesses were  afraid  to  come  forward;  and  next,  the  "nu- 
merous witnesses"  resolved  themselves  into  one  person,  who 
had  "gone  into  the  country."  When  still  further  pressed  to 
furnish  the  promised  evidence,  the  story  of  the  iron  head- 
rack  was  altogether  abandoned,  and  for  it  was  substituted 
the  charge  that  a  certain  eunuch  had  been  arrested  and 
beaten  by  the  police.  But  this,  if  it  occurred,  is  only  ac- 
cording to  the  Korean  custom  of  judicial  procedure,  still  to 
be  allowed,  after  the  torture  of  criminals  had  been  legally 
abolished  under  Japanese  influence.  Nevertheless,  this  con- 
fessedly false  charge  was  afterward  included  in  a  pamphlet 
by  the  same  authority  as  another  instance  of  Japanese  out- 
rages in  Korea.1 

yamen  the  morning  after,  they  replied  that  this  man  was  not  in  the 
fracas  at  all;  he  had  merely  crawled  into  the  yamen  during  the  night, 
and  had  died  of  some  unknown  disease.  The  picture  of  this  shrewd 
Celestial  going  to -the  yamen  to  die,  apparently  for  the  purpose  of  fraud- 
ulently foisting  an  incriminating  corpus  delicti  upon  the  innocent  Ko- 
rean official,  did  not  appeal  to  the  British  Minister,  and  he  got  his 
indemnity. 

1  See  "The  Japanese  in  Korea,"  Extracts  from  The  Korean  Review, 
p.  46  /. 


376  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Of  rudeness  and  petty  assaults  the  Koreans  have,  no  doubt, 
had  much  to  endure  at  the  hands  of  the  coolies  and  other  low- 
class  Japanese.  But  not  so  much  as  the  Burmese  and  East 
Indians  have  had  to  endure  from  the  British  soldier  and 
petty  official  in  their  own  home  land;  or  the  Chinese  and 
Japanese  on  the  Pacific  Coast  of  the  United  States;  and, 
probably,  not  more  than  the  Japanese  themselves  during 
the  earlier  days  of  the  entrance  of  foreigners  into  Japan. 
While  the  atrocious  treatment  of  the  natives  by  the  Belgians 
in  Africa,  by  the  French  in  Madagascar,  by  the  Russians  in 
many  parts  of  Asia,  is  as  midnight  darkness  to  twilight 
or  full  dawn  when  compared  with  anything  done  to  Koreans 
of  late  years  by  the  Japanese. 

In  order  to  understand,  but  not  to  excuse,  this  harsh  and 
bullying  attitude  of  the  foreigner  toward  the  native,  two 
things  need  to  be  borne  in  mind.  The  first  is  this:  Korea 
has  never  been  a  land  where  the  common  people  have  been 
treated  with  any  decency,  not  to  say  respect.  In  the  old  days — 
the  days  to  change  which  the  Japanese  Government  is 
planning  and  doing  more  than  any  other  human  agency — 
the  attendants  of  officials  beat  every  commoner  who  came 
within  their  reach;  this  was  as  a  matter  of  course;  it  was  an 
evidence,  not  much  resented  by  the  people,  of  the  superiority 
of  their  master.  Lieutenant  Foulk  describes  how,  when  he 
was  travelling  in  the  country,  his  chair  coolies  on  approaching 
an  inn  would  accelerate  their  pace  and,  rushing  into  the  yard 
at  the  top  of  their  speed,  would  begin  to  belabor  every  one 
in  sight.  "In  1885,"  says  Mr.  Stevens,  "I  was  riding 
through  the  streets  of  Seoul  on  official  business.  Among  my 
attendants  were  several  policemen  armed  with  the  many- 
thonged  whips  carried  in  those  days.  The  policemen  slashed 
with  these  at  the  curious  who  pressed  around  the  chair,  re- 
gardless of  where  the  blows  fell.  One  old  woman,  lashed  in 
the  face  until  the  blood  came,  still  pressed  forward  when  the 


WRONGS:  REAL  AND  FANCIED  377 

policeman  had  passed,  eager  to  see  the  foreigner  close  at 
hand,  and  apparently  regarding  the  blows  as  a  matter  of 
course."  To-day  such  cruelty  is  in  no  respect  rare  among 
the  "amiable  Koreans."  Indeed,  without  something  of 
this  kind,  it  is  difficult  in  the  country  for  the  traveller,  whether 
native  or  foreigner,  to  get  anything  done.  "  During  the  first 
two  days,"  says  Mr.  Henry  Norman,1  -"I  was  greatly  an- 
noyed by  my  mapouSj  whom  I  could  not  get  along  at  all.  At 
the  midday  halt  they  would  lie  about  for  a  couple  of  hours, 
and  jn  the  morning  it  was  two  or  three  hours  after  I  was  up 
before  I  could  get  them  to  start.  On  the  third  morning  I 
lost  my  temper,  and  going  into  their  room,  I  kicked  them  one 
after  the  other  into  the  yard.  This  was  evidently  what  they 
expected,  for  they  set  to  work  immediately.  Unless  they 
were  kicked  they  could  not  believe  the  hurry  was  real.  After- 
ward, by  a  similar  procedure,  I  started  whenever  I  wished." 
Again,  Mr.  Angus  Hamilton,  after  bringing  a  railing  accusa- 
tion against  the  Japanese  for  their  bullying  methods  with 
the  Koreans,  recommends  that  the  Korean  interpreter  "be 
flogged"  if  he  suggests  the  employment  of  too  many  servants, 
asserts  that  "an  occasional  kick"  is  helpful  to  convert  the 
Korean  into  a  "willing  if  unintelligent  servant,"  and  closes 
his  book  with  the  frank  narrative  of  his  falling  into  a  blind 
rage  and  taking  vengeance  right  and  left  because  of  his 
disappointment  over  the  defeat  of  a  scheme  for  an  exploring 
and  sporting  trip  to  the  northern  part  of  the  peninsula.2 

The  second  consideration  to  which  reference  was  made 
brings  out  the  more  humorous  side  of  the  picture.     In  Korea 

1  The  Far  East  (London,  T.  Fisher  Unwin,  1901),  p.  337  /. 

2  Korea  (Chas.  Scribner's  Sons,  1904),  pp.  128  /.;    274  /.     Perhaps 
the  underlying  reason  for  much  of  Mr.  Hamilton's  rather  vituperative 
criticism  of  affairs  in  Korea  may  be  found  in  Chapter  XII,  where 
Japanese,  American,  and  British  merchants,  and  Lord  Salisbury  are 
all  severely  taken  to  task  because  too  much  of  Korea's  trade  is  falling 
into  other  than  English  hands. 


378  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

it  makes  a  great  difference,  not  only  whose  ox  is  gored,  but 
who  gores  the  ox.  Small  favors  of  the  kind  which  are  re- 
ceived uncomplainingly — almost  gratefully — from  their  own 
officials,  and  even  from  other  friends,  are  by  no  means  just 
now  received  in  the  same  way  from  the  Japanese.  Of  this 
fact  Dr.  Gale  gives  an  admirable  description:  it  is  that  of  a 
Korean  lounging  along  in  the  middle  of  the  road  and  smoking 
the  pipe  of  contemplative  abstraction — a  habit  indulged  in 
by  almost  all  Koreans  in  the  most  inconvenient  places.  A 
Japanese  jinrikisha-man  pushes  him  rudely  to  one  side,,  and 
not  being  at  all  firm  upon  his  legs,  he  goes  sprawling  on  the 
ground  (comp.  p.  172  f.).  Eyes  raised  to  heaven,  he  calls 
upon  the  skies  to  fall;  for  the  end  of  all  things  has  come. 
"But,"  says  the  passing  stranger,  "a  missionary  pushed  you 
out  of  the  way  yesterday;  another  foreigner  beat  you  the  day 
before;:  your  own  people  have  always  kicked  and  cuffed  you." 
"Yes,  yes,  but  a  Japanese!  Only  think  of  it — a  Japanese!" 
Among  the  partially  true,  but  greatly  exaggerated,  charges 
of  petty  oppression  and  injustice  must  be  classed  the  claim 
that  the  labor  on  the  Japanese  military  railway  was  enforced 
by  personal  cruelties  and  paid  for  at  unfair  prices.  Again, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  the  prompt  conclusion  of  this 
work  was  a  military  necessity  of  the  first  importance.  In 
the  rush  and  confusion  which  accompanied  its  execution,  it 
would  have  been  strange  if  there  had  not  been  cases  of  harsh 
treatment  of  laborers  by  the  Japanese  sub-contractors. 
Where  an  appeal,  accompanied  by  trustworthy  evidence,  was 
taken  -to  the  higher  authorities,  it  was  possible  to  obtain  re- 
dress in  almost  every  instance.  But  there  was  another  class 
of  cases  where  it  was  almost  impossible  to  secure  anything 
like  decent  reparation ;  these  were  chiefly  under  the  manage- 
ment of  the  Koreans  themselves.  Concerning  such  cases, 
the  statement  of  an  authority,  made  on  grounds  of  personal 
knowledge,  is  quoted  below: 


WRONGS:  REAL  AND  FANCIED  379 

Complaints  came  from  various  sources,  all  of  the  same  tenor. 
Laborers  living  long  distances  from  the  railway  were  compelled 
to  come  to  work  at  wages  which  hardly  paid  for  their  food.  Yet 
at  this  time  the  authorities  were  paying  wages  much  higher  than 
any  that  could  be  earned  by  these  men  in  other  occupations.  As 
the  laborers  could  not  appeal,  or  did  not  appeal,  directly  to  the 
military  authorities,  but  usually  waited  until  their  return  home  to 
repeat  the  story  of  their  wrongs,  it  was  difficult  to  ascertain  the 
truth.  Whenever  an  investigation  was  possible,  however,  it  was 
usually  discovered  that  the  ill-treatment  was  due  to  a  combina- 
tion between  interpreters,  sub-contractors,  and  local  officials. 
The  sub-contractors  had  to  have  men,  and,  either  through  inter- 
preters or  directly,  would  make  contracts  with  the  local  officials 
to  supply  a  certain  number  of  laborers.  These  were  almost  in- 
variably secured  one  or  two  day's  journey  from  the  railway  line; 
as  it  would  not  do  to  attract  too  much  attention  by  interfering 
with  the  people  living  near  the  railway.  The  laborers  would  be 
compelled  to  work  for  about  one-fourth  of  the  wages  really  paid, 
and  the  balance  would  be  divided  between  the  interpreters  and 
local  officials.  In  certain  cases  the  people  were  allowed  exemp- 
tion from  this  drafting  system  upon  the  payment  of  ransom, 
estimated  upon  the  basis  of  the  number  of  men  which  they  had 
been  asked  to  supply.  Only  recently  an  officer,  who  during  the 
war  had  charge  of  the  construction  of  an  important  section  of 
the  Seoul- Wiju  line,  related  a  case  of  this  kind.  He  was  pay- 
ing one  dollar  and  thirty  cents,  Korean  money,  as  a  day's 
wages;  the  men  were  well  treated,  and  food  was  cheap  and 
abundant.  Still  there  was  constant  trouble  on  account  of  in- 
sufficient supply  of  labor,  the  reason  for  which  the  closest  investiga- 
tion failed  to  reveal.  But  only  a  few  months  ago  (more  than  t\vo 
years,  that  is,  after  the  experience)  the  officer  met  a  man  who 
explained  the  reason.  It  seemed  that  the  Korean  Governor  of 
the  province  had  an  arrangement  with  the  interpreters  which  was 
mutually  profitable  even  when  laborers  were  not  actually  procured 
for  the  work.  The  operations  were  carried  on  over  a  large  extent 
of  territory  distant,  as  was  customary,  several  day's  journey  from 
the  railway.  As  many  laborers  as  could  be  induced,  or  forced,  to 


380  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

come,  were  paid  thirty-five  cents  a  day — the  conspirators  pocketing 
the  balance.  In  the  majority  of  cases  where  the  people  preferred 
.to  purchase  exemption,  these  precious  rascals  collected  consider- 
able sums.  And,  of  course,  the  military  authorities  got  all  the 
blame,  as  all  this  was  done  in  their  name.  Sometimes  the  sub- 
contractors assisted  by  sending  out  parties,  Korean  and  Japanese, 
armed  with  swords  and  pistols,  for  the  purpose  of  intimidating 
the  unwilling  or  the  recalcitrant.  On  several  occasions  condign 
punishment  was  inflicted  for  offences  of  this  kind,  but  as  actual 
violence  was  very  rarely  committed  and  the  intimidation  was 
carried  on  quietly,  where  it  could  not  easily  be  discovered,  it  was 
difficult  to  secure  convincing  proof  against  the  culprits. 

Fair-minded  persons,  familiar  with  the  facts,  know  that  the 
military  authorities  did  all  that  could  have  reasonably  been  asked 
to  put  a  stop  to  such  practices;  but,  occurring  during  a  time  of 
war,  many  of  these  irregularities  were  of  a  nature  which  it  was 
difficult  wholly  to  prevent.  That  officers  in  the  field  and  at  head- 
quarters were  always  ready  to  listen  to  complaints  and,  so  far  as 
lay  in  their  power,  to  rectify  wrongs,  is  an  indisputable  fact. 

The  reputation  of  the  Japanese — army,  civil  government, 
and  the  people  generally — has  suffered  more  from  the  long- 
standing and  the  more  recent  relations  between  Japan  and 
Korea  than  is  customary  elsewhere  under  similar  circum- 
stances. This  is  due  partly  to  inexperience  and  over  self- 
confidence  on  their  own  part;  but  also  in  larger  measure  to 
the  untrustworthy  and  corrupt  witness  of  the  Korean  officials 
and  to  the  ignorance'  and  credulity  of  the  Korean  people; 
most  of  all,  however,  to  the  prejudiced  or  malignant,  untrue 
reports  of  certain  foreigners.  During  the  occupation  and 
transit  of  the  Japanese  army  in  the  late  war,  the  charges  of 
cruelty  and  injustice  on  its  part  were  not  confined  to  the 
construction  and  service  of  the  military  railway.  While  the 
commissary  department  was  paying  to  the  Korean  con- 
tractors the  full  market  price  for  provisions  and  other  sup- 
plies, the  contractors  were  compelling  the  Korean  people  to 


WRONGS:  REAL  AND  FANCIED  381 

furnish  the  supplies,  either  without  pay  or  at  greatly  reduced 
rates.  From  time  immemorial,  the  people  of  Korea  have 
been  accustomed  to  have  their  rice,  chickens,  ponies,  and 
service,  levied  upon  by  their  own  officials;  in  the  present  case 
they,  as  a  matter  of  course,  attributed  the  same  manner  of 
getting  what  you  want  by  taking  what  you  see,  to  the 
Japanese.1 

Ignorance  of  the  Korean  language  and  customs  is  another 
fruitful  scource  of  bad  repute  for  the  Japanese.  Even  now, 
in  the  city  of  Seoul,  the  Japanese  who  blunders  into  the 
women's  quarters,  or  even  into  their  too  near  vicinity,  in  the 
discharge  of  his  duty  to  collect  a  bill,  to  make  an  inspection 
or  a  report  of  some  official  character,  or  to  inquire  his  way, 
is  liable  to  be  charged  with  an  intent  to  commit  rape  or  some 
other  form  of  assault.  The  Japanese  collector  of  taxes,  or 
customs,  or  the  Japanese  policeman  who  protects  the  ob- 
noxious Korean  official,  or  even  the  "  unpatriotic "  Cabinet 
Minister,  is  a  particular  object  of  Korean  falsehood  and 
hatred.  But  all  these  complaints,  although  they  have  been 
made  much  of  by  the  anti- Japanese  "friends"  of  Korea,  and 
in  spite  of  the  undoubted  fact  that  they  greatly  increase  the 
feeling  of  bitterness  between  the  two  peoples  and  interfere 
with  the  benevolent  plans  of  the  Resident-General,  are  in 
themselves  comparatively  trivial. 

Wholly  false  charges  of  oppression  and  fraud  of  a  much 
more  important  character  have  been  made  against  the  Jap- 
anese Government  in  Korea,  either  in  ignorance  or  with 
malignity,  and  have  industriously  been  spread  abroad  by  the 
subsidized  or  the  deceived  " foreign  friends"  of  the  Korean 
Court.  One  of  the  most  notable  of  such  charges  concerned 

1  According  to  the  testimony  of  travellers  in  the  interior  of  Korea, 
it  is  extremely  difficult  to.  get  any  food,  accommodation,  or  service, 
even  when  desirous  of  paying  the  highest  prices,  on  account  of  the  ex- 
perience with  their  own  travelling  officials,  who  never  expect  to  pay 
for  anything  exacted  from  the  country  people. 


382  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

the  so-called  "  fisheries  company."  Its  history  is  briefly  this. 
Certain  Koreans  came  to  a  "missionary  friend"  complaining 
that  the  Resident-General  had  peremptorily  dissolved  a 
Korean  company  which  had  a  legal  concession  to  develop 
the  fisheries  industry,  thus  involving  the  shareholders  in 
heavy  losses.  The  presumption  was  that  the  unjust  act  was 
intended  to  further  in  the  future  the  Japanese  interest  in 
this  same  industry.  But  the  truth  was  that  the  Minister  of 
Agriculture,  Commerce  and  Industry  had  in  the  Fall  of  1906, 
at  the  solicitation  of  a  "Korean,  notorious  for  previous  par- 
ticipation in  malodorous  schemes,"  secretly  granted  to  a 
native  company  a  monopoly  of  all  the  fishing  rights  upon  the 
entire  Korean  coasts ,  except  the  whale  fisheries.  In  addition 
to  this,  this  same  company  was  given  the  exclusive  right  of 
control  over  all  the  fish  markets  in  the  Empire,  so  that  no 
fish  could  be  sold  except  at  places  designated  by  it  and  upon 
payment  to  it  of  such  sums  as  it  might  choose  to  exact. 
When,  however,  sufficient  funds  were  not  speedily  available 
from  Korean  subscribers  to  float  this  monstrous  and  totally 
illegal  monopoly,  a  Japanese  visiting  capitalist  was  ap- 
proached by  the  Korean  promoter  and  asked  to  buy  a  half- 
share  of  the  enterprise.  His  mention  of  the  investment 
offered  to  him  gave  to  the  Residency- General  its  first  knowl- 
edge of  the  scheme.  The  Minister  of  Agriculture,  Com- 
merce and  Industry  was  immediately  informed  that  such  a 
concession  was  in  plain  violation  of  treaty  rights  and  highly 
prejudicial  to  Korean  private  and  public  interests.  The 
Minister  was  also  warned  that  the  concession  should  be  can- 
celled; he  promised  to  do  this,  and  it  was  supposed  that  he 
had  kept  his  word.  But  either  through  cowardice  or  con- 
nivance at  corruption,  the  promise  was  not  fulfilled.  Months 
later,  therefore,  the  Chief  of  the  Commercial  Department  of 
the  Residency-General,  Mr.  Kiuchi,  while  making  a  tour  of 
inspection  in  Southeastern  Korea,  received  a  petition  from 


WRONGS:  REAL  AND  FANCIED  383 

the  fishermen  of  the  district,  complaining  that  this  same 
company  was  levying  taxes  upon  them  and  forbidding  those 
who  did  not  pay  the  taxes  to  continue  their  fishing.  The 
complete  dissolution  of  this  illegal  monopoly  was  saved  from 
being  the  object  of  popular  resentment  only  by  the  fact  that 
its  promoters  had  been  ready  to  share  their  plunder  with  a 
Japanese ! l 

Another  instance  which  illustrates,  however,  the  habitual 
exaggeration  and  ignorant  credulity  of  the  Koreans  rather 
than  their  well-known  official  capacity  for  fraud,  is  connected 
with  the  establishment  of  the  royal  "stud-farm"  near  Pyeng- 
yang.  In  this  case  two  native  pastors  from  this  city,  as 
members  of  a  deputation  to  petition  the  redress  of  a  great 
wrong,  came  to  a  missionary  friend  in  Seoul  in  great  distress. 
Their  story  was  that  the  Korean  officials  of  the  Household 
Department,  in  complicity  with  the  Japanese  officials,  had 
enclosed  in  stakes  a  territory  having  a  population  of  fifty 
thousand  people  and  comprising  a  vast  quantity  of  arable 
land.  Within  this  large  area,  no  one  could  sell  the  land,  or 
cut  timber  or  grass,  or  plant  crops,  or  bury  the  dead;  or,  in 
brief,  put  the  land  to  any  of  its  ordinary  uses.  These  official 
prohibitions  were  said  to  have  been  inscribed  upon  the 
stakes — although  the  petitioners,  on  being  questioned,  could 
not  tell  upon  just  how  many  of  them.  At  Seoul,  neither  the 
Korean  nor  the  Japanese  officials  knew  of  any  such  project 
in  connection  with  the  proposed  stud-farm;  although  it  was 
true  that  such  a  farm  was  to  be  established,  under  the  joint 
patronage  of  their  Majesties,  the  Emperors  of  Japan  and 
Korea.  Communication  with  Marquis  Ito,  who  was  then  in 
Tokyo,  brought  a  reassuring  telegram  from  him.  Investiga- 
tion showed  that  no  notice  of  the  kind  had  been  put  upon 
any  of  the  stakes  which  had  been  erected  to  show  that  all 

1  It  furnished  Mr.  Hulbert  and  Mr.  Bethell,  however,  with  a  striking 
instance  of  the  way  in  which  the  Japanese  are  robbing  the  Koreans. 


384  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

the  government  lands  within  the  area  delimited  were  re- 
served for  the  uses  of  the  farm.  Nor  did  the  placing  of  the 
stakes  put  any  restrictions  whatever  upon  the  people,  so  far 
as  concerned  their  own  property.  The  one  stake  on  which 
the  mysterious  notice  did  appear  had  been  driven  some  time 
previous  to  the  very* existence  of  the  scheme  for  a  royal  farm; 
and  it  had  reference  to  a  totally  different  piece  of  Imperial 
property  which  it  had  been  designed  to  guard  against  en- 
croachments from  both  Koreans  and  Japanese  dwelling  in 
Pyeng-yang.  All  this  excitement  could  have  been  avoided 
if  the  Korean  officials  had  done  their  duty  by  way  of  inform- 
ing and  instructing  the  people.  But  the  simple  truth  is  that 
many  of  them  and  of  the  "foreign  friends"  of  Korea  do  not 
wish  to  avoid  any  popular  excitement  which  will  contribute 
to  the  embarrassment  and  discredit  of  the  Japanese  Govern- 
ment in  Korea.  The  rather  do  they  welcome  all  such  excite- 
ment. 

The  truth  of  this  last  remark  is  amply  illustrated  by  the 
treatment  given  to  the  " Pagoda  Incident" — one  of  the 
"flagrant  wrongs"  done  to  Korea  by  the  Japanese  which  was 
on  the  carpet  during  our  entire  stay  of  two  months  in  the 
land.  Viscount  Tanaka,  who  is  described  as  "an  ardent 
virtuoso  and  collector,"  while  visiting  in  Seoul  was  ap- 
proached by  a  Japanese  curio  dealer  with  the  suggestion  that 
he  might  add  to  his  collection  the  ancient  but  neglected 
pagoda  then  situated  near  Song-do.  Mention  of  the  matter 
was  made  to  the  Korean  Ministers  of  the  Interior  and  of  the 
Household,  and  their  approval  obtained;  and  through  them 
the  sanction  of  the  Emperor  was  gained  for  its  removal,  as  a 
present  to  his  distinguished  guest.  The  actual  work  of  the 
removal  was  committed  to  the  dealer  who  made  the  un- 
fortunate suggestion,  and  who  executed  his  job  "with  his 
characteristic  skill  and  audacity."  Previous  to  its  removal 
this  relic  of  former  grandeur  had  for  a  long  time  been  wholly 


The  Stone-Turtle  Monument. 


WRONGS:  REAL  AND  FANCIED  385 

neglected  by  the  Korean  Government  and  was,  in  fact,  in 
process  of  destruction  by  the  Korean  people,  who  were  in  the 
habit  of  removing  bits  from  it  to  use  as  medicine.  At  once, 
however,  a  storm  of  indignant  protest  broke  out;  not,  indeed, 
among  the  Koreans  left  to  themselves  so  much  as  on  the  part 
of  the  "foreign  friends"  of  Korea  in  their  English  papers  and 
foreign  correspondence.  The  Viscount  was  called  by  terms 
applicable  to  a  common  thief;  the  "robbery  of  the  Pagoda," 
the  "rape  of  the  Pagoda,"  the  plunder  of  this  "precious 
religious  relic"  of  Korea's  former  grandeur,  was  deplored 
and  abjurgated  in  the  most  extravagant  terms.  The  Em- 
peror doubtless  chuckled;  for  while  he  cared  little  for  the 
Pagoda,  he  cared  much  for  the  discredit  which  the  taking 
away  of  it  brought  upon  the  Japanese.  The  unwise  act  was 
virtually  disowned  by  the  Residency- General  (Marquis  Ito 
was  absent  in  Japan  at  the  time  of  its  removal),  and  was 
severely  criticised  by  the  Japanese  themselves;  with  the  de- 
parture of  Mr.  Hulbert  for  Russia  the  excitement  over  this 
act  of  oppression  gave  way  to  more  important  political  affairs . 
Most  ludicrous  and  pathetic — but  highly  characteristic — 
of  all  these  popular  excitements  was,  perhaps,  that  which 
arose  through  the  mere  proposal  of  a  subject  of  debate  by 
a  Japanese  student  in  Waseda  University,  Japan :  Whether 
the  Korean  Emperor  should  not  be  made  a  noble  of  Japan  ? 
(Thus  implying,  of  course,  his  descent  from  his  Imperial 
dignity  and  the  virtual  annexation  of  Korea.)  The  proposal 
was  indeed  never  adopted,  and  the  debate  never  took  place. 
But  the  intolerable  insult  to  the  Korean  students  at  the 
same  university,  and  to  the  whole  nation  of  Korea — although 
the  authorities  of  Waseda  at  once  rebuked  the  unfortunate 
student — was  dwelt  upon,  and  exaggerated,  and  rubbed  into 
the  inflamed  and  sensitive  skins  of  the  people,  with  all  the 
vigor  which  the  Korean  patriots  and  their  "  foreign  friends " 
could  command.  And  when  some  obscure  but  self -conceited 


386  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Japanese  official,  in  Japan  and  not  at  all  in  Korea,  published 
a  brochure  giving  fully  two-score  and  more  reasons  why 
Japan  should  promptly  annex  Korea,  these  same  patriots  and 
their  friends  made  all  the  use  in  their  power  of  this  insignificant 
document  to  stir  up  sedition  and  murderous  revolt.  It  was 
the  issue  of  it  as  a  forgery  bearing  the  official  authorization 
of  the  Japanese  Government,  which  caused  the  excitement  in 
Pyeng-yang — the  story  of  which  has  already  been  told 
(see  p.  104  f.).1 

It  is  not  necessary,  however,  to  multiply  instances  under 
any  of  these  heads.  All  classes  of  wrongs  done  the  Koreans 
by  the  Japanese — important  and  trivial,  real,  exaggerated,  or 
falsely  claimed — are  fast  diminishing  and  are  destined  in  time 
to  be  reduced  to  a  minimum.  The  Korean  Central  Govern- 
ment is  now  more  genuine,  more  intelligent,  and  more 
efficient — as  distinguished  from  the  mere  wilfulness  of  the  ex- 
Emperor — than  it  has  ever  been  before.  The  reforms  possi- 
ble under  the  Convention  of  July,  1907,  will  afford  a  judiciary 
system  and  judicial  procedure  hitherto  impossible  as  respects 
the  administration  of  justice.  The  control  of  the  local 
magistrate  and  of  the  policing  of  city  and  country  will  con- 

1  An  occurrence,  which  might  easily  have  become  a  much  celebrated 
instance  of  a  Japanese  attempt  at  robbery  and  oppression  of  the  Ko- 
reans, came  to  the  writer's  notice  in  a  private  but  entirely  trustworthy 
way.  One  of  the  ex-Emperor's  real  foreign  friends  was  sent  for  some 
time  ago  and  found  His  Majesty  in  a  state  of  intense  alarm  and  excite- 
ment over  a  plot  of  the  Residency-General  which  had  just  been  made 
known  to  him.  A  certain  foreigner  had  authorized  the  story  that  the 
Japanese  authorities  were  trying  to  purchase  three  houses  owned  by  a 
Chinese  and  situated  just  opposite  the  Palace,  with  a  view  to  tear  them 
down  and  erect  barracks  for  the  Japanese  soldiers  on  the  spot.  The 
price  offered  by  the  Japanese  was  60,000  yen;  but  if  His  Majesty 
would  furnish  65,000  yen,  this  friendly  foreigner  would  buy  the  prop- 
erty for  him,  and  so  defeat  the  nefarious  project  of  the  Japanese. 
The  Emperor  wished  at  once  to  borrow  the  money.  It  was  suggested, 
however,  that  His  Majesty  should  allow  inquiry  to  be  made  before 
parting  with  so  much  of  his  privy  purse.  Whereupon,  the  following 


WRONGS:  REAL  AND  FANCIED  387 

tribute  something  quite  new  in  the  way  of  the  blessings  of 
peace  and  prosperity  to  the  common  people.  The  reforms  in 
the  public  finance  and  in  taxation  will  stimulate  trade  and 
commerce;  the  industrial  and  common-school  education  will 
bring  about  an  economic  redemption.  And  if  the  teachers  of 
morals  and  religion,  both  native  and  foreign,  behave  with  a 
reasonable  wisdom  and  self-control  in  the  future,  and  with  the 
same  devotion  and  enthusiasm  which  they  have  displayed  in 
the  recent  years,  wrongs  will  be  righted;  justice  will  be  done; 
enlightenment  will  be  spread  abroad;  and  the  Korea  of  the 
near  future  will  be  a  quite  different  nation  from  the  Korea 
of  the  long-continued,  disgraceful,  and  distressful  past. 

conversation  was  held  between  the  Chinese  owner  and  the  person  to 
whom  the  Emperor  looked  to  procure  for  him  the  needed  sum: 

"I  understand  the  three  houses  you  own  are  offered  for  sale." 

"Well,  I  do  not  particularly  wish  to  sell  them;  but  that  Frenchman, 
Mr.  —  — ,  has  been  here  and  wanted  to  get  them.  He  said  he  wished 
to  put  up  a  large  store  in  their  place." 

"How  much  do  you  ask  for  the  houses?" 

"They  are  worth  13,000  yen;  but  if  any  one  will  take  all  three  of 
them,  he  may  have  them  for  12,000  yen  in  cash." 

"Is  that  so?  I  understood  the  Japanese  wanted  them  to  build  bar- 
racks for  their  soldiers  on  the  land." 

"I  have  not  heard  anything  about  the  Japanese  wanting  them;  it 
was  that  Frenchman  who  said  he  wanted  them,  to  build  a  store  there." 

The  benevolent  spirit  of  this  enterprising  foreign  friend  is  revealed 
more  intimately  when  we  learn  that  he  threatened  to  shoot  on  the  spot, 
if  he  could  only  find  out  who  he  was,  the  man  that  had  thwarted  his 
plan  for  this  bit  of  real-estate  speculation.  The  same  intention  was 
avowed  by  the  American  miner  against  the  foreign  official  of  the  Korean 
Government  whom  he  regarded  as  standing  in  the  way  of  the  success 
of  the  "Poong  Poo"  Company  (see  p.  361  f.). 


CHAPTER  XVII 

MISSIONS   AND   MISSIONARIES 

AMONG  the  many  vexatious  problems  occasioned  in  modern 
times  by  the  increased  intercourse  of  Western  nations  with 
the  Orient,  those  which  arise  in  connection  with  the  advent 
and  development  of  Christian  missions  are  of  no  small  im- 
portance. In  general,  in  this  quarter  of  the  world  the  diplo- 
mats and  business  men  are  upon  one  side  of  most  of  the  con- 
troverted questions;  the  missionaries  and  their  supporters  upon 
the  other.  It  is  inevitable,  and  not  necessarily  discreditable 
to  either  party,  that  differences  of  opinion  should  exist  between 
these  two  classes  as  to  the  best  practical  answer  to  some  of 
these  questions.  Those  few  of  the  former  class,  who  are 
sincerely  and  unselfishly  interested  in  moral  and  spiritual 
things,  and  in  the  higher  welfare  of  the  world,  and  the  scarcely 
greater  number  of  the  latter  class  who  have  the  spirit  of 
knightly  gentlemen,  a  thorough  culture,  and  are  also  of  a  wise 
and  broad  mind,  can  usually  approach  very  closely  to  a 
sympathetic  understanding  of  each  other,  if  not  toward 
active  co-operation.  If,  however,  the  diplomat  or  business 
man,  as  is  so  frequently  the  case,  does  not  like  to  see  the  cause 
of  religion  advancing,  because  of  the  sure  instinct  that  its 
success  will  limit,  or  stop,  many  a  nefarious  or  morally 
doubtful  practice,  then,  of  course,  the  support  of  all  who  care 
for  the  higher  values  must  be  given  to  the  side  of  the  mis- 
sionaries. On  the  other  hand,  if  the  narrow  prejudice,  fanat- 
icism, or  intellectual  and  ethical  weakness  of  the  teacher  of 
foreign  religion  are  seriously  interfering  with  the  legitimate 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  389 

practices  of  diplomacy  or  commerce,  our  sympathies  can 
scarcely  fail  to  turn  in  the  other  direction.  Especially  is  this 
true  where  such  interference  tends  to  produce  disturbance  of 
the  public  order  and  to  check  genuine  political  and  economic 
reform.  Yet  in  the  one  case,  we  cannot  forget  the  injunction 
of  the  Founder  of  Christianity  to  his  disciples:  "Be  ye  wise 
as  serpents  and  harmless  as  doves";  or  the  rebuke  implied 
in  the  declaration:  "The  children  of  this  world  are  wiser  in 
their  generation  than  the  children  of  light."  In  the  other  case, 
we  have  ringing  in  our  ears  the  declaration  which  so  many 
centuries  of  history  have  confirmed:  "Think  not  that  I 
came  to  send  peace  on  the  earth;  I  came  not  to  send  peace 
but  a  sword." 

In  most  cases  of  prolonged  controversy  over  the  -conduct 
of  the  missionary  and  the  character  of  his  work,  there  is  more 
or  less  of  misunderstanding  and  of  faulty  behavior  on  both 
sides.  For  missionaries  are  but  men;  and  like  men  of  all 
other  trades,  businesses,  prof  essions,  or  callings,  they  have  their 
peculiar  temptations,  their  liability  to  peculiar  mistakes,  and 
— to  use  the  theological  term — their  besetting  sins.  The  past 
and  present  relations  of  Christian  missions  to  the  Government 
and  people  of  Korea  will  be  the  better  understood  if  we 
consider  briefly  what  some  of  these  temptations  are.  One 
of  the  most  potent,  if  not  important,'  is  the  temptation  to 
make  a  good  showing  in  the  matter  of  statistics.  That  the 
workman  on  the  field  should  rejoice  in  a  bountiful  harvest 
is  not,  in  itself,  a  matter  for  surprise  or  rebuke;  just  the  con- 
trary is  true.  Nor  is  it  necessarily  prejudicial  to  the  real 
good  of  the  cause,  if  the  home  officers  and  supporters  of  the 
foreign  denominational  enterprise  implicitly  seem  to  require, 
as  a  prerequisite  to  their  continued  zeal  and  generous  sub- 
scriptions, a  fair  annual  showing  as  to  the  increase  in  the 
number  of  converts.  But  especially  in  Korea  at  the  present 
time,  it  is  quality  and  not  numbers  that  ought  chiefly  to  be 


3Qo  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

allowed  to  count.  And  yet  it  is  numbers  and  not  quality 
which  is  most  reasonably  to  be  expected  and  most  likely 
to  be  found,  for  two  or  three  generations  to  come. 

The  paradox  involved  in  the  last  sentences  requires  further 
explanation.  In  her  interesting  but  highly  colored  and  by 
no  means  altogether  trustworthy  book  on  Korea,  Mrs.  Bishop 
makes  the  following  declarations:  "The  idea  of  a  nation 
destitute  of  a  religion  and  gladly  accepting  one  brought  by  a 
foreigner,  must  be  dropped.  The  religion  the  Korean  would 
accept  is  one  which  would  show  him  how  to  get  money  with- 
out working  for  it.  The  indifference  is  extreme ;  the  religious 
faculty  is  absent;  there  are  no  religious  ideas  to  appeal  to, 
and  the  moral  teachings  of  Confucius  have  little  influence 
with  any  class."1  Of  these  declarations  the  last  is  the  only 
one  which  is  wholly  true.  M oral  teachings  of  any  kind  have 
had  little  effect  hitherto  in  Korea.  Briefly  stated,  and  as 
seen  from  the  point  of  view  afforded  through  a  survey  of  the 
history  of  man's  religious  experience  and  of  the  progress  of 
Christian  missionary  enterprise,  the  condition  of  the  Korean 
people  is  this.  They  are  a  nation  by  no  means  indifferent 
to  religion,  or  destitute  of  religious  faculty  and  religious  ideas. 
But  the  religion  almost  universally  prevalent  has  been  for 
centuries  a  low  form  of  spiritism — largely,  devil-worship. 
Even  Korean  ancestor-worship,  unlike  that  in  Japan,  is  still 
almost  exclusively  motived  and  characterized  by  super- 
stitious and  degrading  fears  rather  than  by  the  spirit  of 
reverence,  loyalty,  and  affection.  Among  the  so-called 
civilized  nations  of  the  world  there  is  probably  not  another 
where  the  prevalent  native  religion  is  of  a  more  depressing 
and  degrading  character  than  in  Korea. 

Now  it  is  an  experience  very  easy  to  explain  from  the 
psychological  point  of  view  that  where  the  other  elements  of 
"uplift"  begin  to  work  powerfully  among  a  people  of  a  low 

1  Korea  and  Her  Neighbors,  by  Isabella  Bird  Bishop,  p.  64. 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  391 

form  of  religion,  any  imported  religious  faith  and  worship 
which  seems  to  offer  help  to,  or  to  be  in  conformity  with,  this 
work,  may  speedily  secure  the  adherence  of  great  multitudes 
of  the  people.  In  Korea,  for  example,  there  is  absolutely  no 
religion  to  compete  with  an  imported  Christianity.  There  is 
no  developed  Confucianism  as  there  is  in  China;  no  re- 
formed or  reflectively  elaborated  Buddhism,  as  there  is  in 
Japan;  no  refined  religious  philosophy  and  complicated 
caste  system  as  there  is  in  India.  Any  kind  of  ferment  in  the 
ancient  but  deplorably  sad  and  oppressive  conditions  of  the 
popular  life  will  inevitably,  therefore,  prove  favorable  to  the 
rapid  spread  of  a  modern  and  improved  form  of  religion. 
For  the  people  must  have  some  religion ;  and  in  Korea,  what 
is  there  to  rival,  for  what  it  promises  and  performs,  the 
religion  of  the  American  and  English  missionaries?  It  is 
this  kind  of  nation  which,  so  far  as  statistics  that  can  boast 
millions  of  converts  are  concerned,  may  under  favorable 
conditions  be  "born  in  a  day."  At  the  .same  time,  how- 
ever, it  is  this  kind  of  nation  whose  multitude  of  converts 
will  almost  surely  fail  to  apprehend  or  to  appreciate  the  really 
important  things  about  the  new  faith  which  they  hasten  to 
profess.  It  is  this  kind  of  nation  that  most  needs,  through 
three  or  more  generations,  the  solid  work  of  education,  and 
the  purifying  process  of  severe  discipline,  in  order  to  secure 
the  genuine  spirit  and  true  practice  of  the  religion  of  Christ. 
Education  and  prolonged  moral  discipline  are  imperative  for 
the  establishment  ^of  a  trustworthy  Christian  population  in 
Korea.  Here  the  necessity  for  careful  sifting  and  severe  prun- 
ing is  exaggerated  beyond  most  precedents,  because  of  the 
undoubted  fact  that  the  underlying  motives  for  a  first  ad- 
herence to  Christianity  are,  in  a  large  percentage  of  the  so- 
called  converts,  economic  and  political  rather  than  moral  and 
spiritual.  And,  indeed,  how.can  the  Korean  common  people, 
with  their  low  intellectual,  material,  and  moral  ideals,  rise  en 


392  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

masse  from  the  condition  of  superstitious  and  immoral  devil- 
worshippers  to  the  faith  and  practice  of  a  pure  Christianity  ? 
The  most  fundamental  conceptions  of  God,  of  Christian 
duty  and  Christian  character,  of  the  spiritual  life,  and  of  the 
Divine  relations  to  man,  are  as  yet  almost  totally  lacking. 
If  the  number  of  recent  converts  in  Korea  furnishes  just  cause 
for  hope  and  rejoicing,  the  character  of  these  converts  and 
of  their  environment  gives  also  cause  for  foreboding. 

Closely  connected  with  this  temptation  is  another  which  is 
less  obvious  and  therefore  more  subtle  and  dangerous.  It 
is  the  temptation  to  a  wrong  which  has  done  more  by  far  than 
all  the  heresies  to  disgrace  and  damage  the  Christian  Church 
during  the  centuries  of  its  history.  This  is  the  temptation, 
even  unconsciously,  to  make  use  for  one's  self,  or  for  one's 
converts,  of  the  "double  ethical  standard."  Neither  in 
Korea  nor  elsewhere  can  the  missionary  permit  himself  to 
be  betrayed  into  words  and  conduct  which  he  would  con- 
sider unworthy  of  a  " heathen"  gentleman;  or  allow  his  dis- 
ciples, without  rebuke  and  discipline,  in  the  practice  of  the 
very  vices  for  which  he  despises  the  Japanese  or  Chinese 
coolie  or  tradesman.  There  are  no  two  standards  of  moral- 
ity— one  for  the  American  or  English  teacher  of  religion  and 
another  for  the  Korean  or  Japanese  official;  one  for  the  priest 
and  anotner  for  the  layman;  one  for  the  Korean  confessor 
and  another  for  the  foreign  oppressor.  It  is  true  that  for  a 
long  time  to  come  great  discretion  and  much  leniency  must 
be  shown  toward  the  Korean  convert  who  continues  in  the 
beliefs,  or  who  relapses  into  the  practices,  of  the  low-grade 
spiritism  out  of  which  he  emerged  when  he  became  a  Chris- 
tian adherent.  It  is  not  impossible,  however,  that  there  has 
been  up  to  the  present  time  too  much  of  praise  and  too  little 
of  rebuke  and  instruction  meted  out  to  the  " adherents"  of 
Christianity  in  Korea.  Indulgence  in  the  vices  of  lying,  dis- 
honesty, intrigue,  avarice,  impurity,  and  race-hatred,  cannot 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  393 

be  condoned  by  a  display  of  amiability.  Flagrant  cases  of 
sexual  misdemeanors  h^ye,  indeed,  in  comparatively  few 
cases  been  made  subjects  for  the  severer  discipline.  But  the 
prophetic  voice,  raised  unmistakably  in  evidence  of  the  high 
standard  of  morality  characteristic  of  "the  religion  of  Christ" 
is  required  under  all  such  circumstances  as  those  which 
prevail  among  the  Korean  Christians — thousands  of  whom, 
during  the  religious  awakening  of  the  winter  of  1906  and 
1907,  confessed  to  having  lived  for  years  in  the  habitual 
practice  of  the  vices  enumerated  above. 

All  of  this,  and  even  more  of  similar  experiences  connected 
with  the  planting  and  growth  of  Christian  missions  in  Korean 
soil,  is  by  no  means  necessarily  discreditable  to  the  mission- 
aries themselves.  On  the  contrary,  much  of  it  is  inevitable; 
it  is  the  same  thing  which  has  been  the  accompaniment  of 
the  early  stages  of  Christian  propagandism  in  all  ages,  when 
conducted  in  the  midst  of  similar  conditions.  So-called 
"conversions"  may  be  rapid;  the  process  of  selection  and  the 
labor  of  instruction  and  edifying  follow  more  slowly,  in  due 
time.  The  lower  the  existing  religious  condition  of  the 
multitude,  when  the  higher  form  of  religion  appeals  to  them, 
the  more  prompt  and  extensive  is  the  religious  uplift  of  this 
multitude;  but  the  larger  the  number  of  the  converts,  the 
more  need  of  discretion  and  diligence  for  the  process  of  im- 
proving their  quality.  It  is  a  reasonable  hope  that  the  same 
workmen  who  have  in  the  main  proved  so  successful  in  the 
one  form  of  Christian  work  will  prove  equally  successful  in 
the  somewhat  different  work  which  the  future  development 
of  Christian  institutions  in  Korea  imposes  upon  them. 

There  is  another  form  of  temptation  against  which  it  is 
much  easier  for  the  religious  propagandist  to  guard,  but 
which  has  been  rather  unusually  strong  and  pervasive  in 
the  recent  history  of  Korean  missions.  This  is  the  tempta- 
tion to  underestimate,  or  even  despise,  the  auxiliaries  which 


394  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

are  offered  by  an  improved  condition  of  tne  material,  legal, 
and  educational  facilities  to  the  more  definitively  religious 
uplift  of  the  people.  The  missionary  can  contribute  the 
share  of  religion  to  progress  and  reform;  and  he  can  make 
that  a  large  share.  But  it  is  safe  and  wise  for  him  not  to 
under-estimate  or  despise  the  support  of  the  civil  arm.  Korea 
is  to-day,  as  has  been  already  shown  in  detail,  a  land  un- 
blessed by  any  of  the  institutions  of  a  prosperous  and  equi- 
table civil  government  of  the  modern  Christian  type,  estab- 
lished and  fostered  by  its  own  ruling  classes.  The  multitude 
of  its  people  are  even  more  than  its  rulers  incapable  of  taking 
the  initiative  in  founding  such  institutions.  The  dawning 
of  the  very  idea  of  good  government  has  scarcely  as  yet  risen 
upon  them. 

Early  Christianity  was  propagated  in  the  Roman  world 
largely  by  making  available  for  its  uses  the  means  furnished 
by  the  Roman  Empire.  And  the  early  Christians  were  ex- 
pressly enjoined  to  welcome  all  the  support  offered  from, 
and  to  offer  their  support  to,  whatever  was  good  and  helpful 
in  the  existing  civil  government.  It  is  then  a  conceit  which 
is  unwarranted  by  the  history  of  the  Christian  church  that 
makes  the  missionary  think,  by  ''preaching  the  Gospel"  to 
effect  all  which  is  necessary  toward  reforming  a  nation  in  the 
condition  of  Korea  at  the  present  time.  Moreover,  the 
claim  that  it  was  Christianity — especially  in  the  form  of  a 
so-called  preaching  of  the  Gospel — which,  unaided  by  other 
historical  and  moral  forces,  gave  to  the  Western  world  its 
"democratic"  advantages,  is  no  longer  tenable.  The  ex- 
perience with  Coptic  Christianity  in  Egypt,  with  Armenian 
Christianity  in  Western  Asia,  with  the  Greek  Church  in 
Holy  Russia,  and  with  Roman  Catholicism  in  Spain  and 
South  America  (not  to  mention  other  notable  examples)  con- 
tradicts this  claim.  In  Korea  itself  it  is  not  the  Christian 
Missionary  who  is  building  railways,  making  harbors,  plant- 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  395 

ing  light-houses,  devising  a  legal  code,  introducing  a  sound 
currency,  and  attempting  the  task  of  reforming  the  finances, 
the  judiciary,  the  police,  and  the  local  magistracy.  Even 
granted  that  he  is  setting  at  work  moral  and  spiritual  forces 
which  will  ultimately  bring  to  pass  all  these  public  benefits, 
it  would  take  five  hundred  years  for  Korea  without  foreign 
assistance  from  other  forms  of  civilizing  energy,  to  secure 
these  benefits.  It  is  with  no  intention  to  depreciate  the 
work  of  missions  in  Korea  that  attention  is  called  to  this 
obvious  fact;  its  workmen  had  very  unusual  opportunities 
to  assist  in  improving  the  moral  character  of  the  Emperor, 
the  late  Queen,  the  Court,  and  the  other  officials;  and  yet 
they  signally  failed  in  this  regard.  Nor  could  they,  unaided 
by  the  civil  arm  of  foreign  powers,  accomplish  much  toward 
relieving  the  miserable  and  oppressed  and  immoral  conditions 
of  living  prevalent  among  the  common  people  of  Korea. 
Just  here,  however — that  is,  in  the  sphere  of  moral  and 
spiritual  influence  upon  personal  character,  whether  of 
prince  or  peasant — is  where  the  influence  of  religion 
ought  to  show  itself  supreme.  The  "  purification "  of 
Korea  required,  and  still  requires,  the  firm,  strong  hand  of 
the  civil  power.  We  cannot,  then,  credit  any  such  sentiment 
as  that  expressed  in  the  following  statement : 1  "  The  influence 
of  Christianity,  so  largely  and  rapidly  increasing  in  the 
country,  holds  out  a  better  prospect  of  spontaneous  reform 
than  the  outside,  violent  interference  of  a  money-grabbing 
and  hated  heathen  enemy."  In  answer  to  every  such  ex- 
pression of  sentiment,  the  protestation  of  the  Resident- 
General  has  been  perfectly  clear;  and  as  fast  and  as  far  as 
his  influence  could  make  itself  felt,  the  conduct  of  affairs  has 

1  Quoted  from  an  anonymous  letter,  signed  "Foreigner,"  and  pub- 
lished in  the  Seoul  Press,  date  of  August  »6,  1907.  The  spirit  of  this 
passage  is  characteristic  of  the  entire  letter,  which  was  nearly  a  column 
long,  and  which  was,  alas!  written  by  a  missionary. 


396  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

confirmed  the  protestation:  "It  is  Japan's  honest  and  sin- 
cere purpose  to  make  of  the  Koreans  a  self-reliant  and  re- 
spectable people.  Let  there  be  an  end,  then,  to  the  malign 
and  mischief-making  efforts  to  alienate  the  Koreans  from 
those  who  to-day  are  through  the  sure  work  of  History 
charged  with  responsibility  for  this  nation. "  * 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  prompt,  open,  and  hearty  co- 
operation with  all  the  efforts,  of  every  kind,  made  by  the 
Japanese  Protectorate  to  lift  up  the  Korean  people  is  the 
only  truly  wise  and  Christian  policy  on  the  part  of  the  mis- 
sions in  Korea.2 

How  far  the  Korean  missionaries  have  yielded  to  these  and 
other  temptations  and  have  behaved  unwisely  toward  the 
Japanese  Government  and  before  their  Korean  converts,  it 
is  not  our  purpose  to  discuss  in  detail.  And  yet  we  cannot 
avoid  all  reference  to  this  delicate  and  unwelcome  theme. 
Wholesale  charges  of  political  intrigue  and  other  unbecoming 
conduct  directed  against  the  Residency-General  have  been 
met  by  emphatic  and  equally  wholesale  denials — especially 
during  the  troubled  times  of  1906  and  1907.  The  charges, 
on  the  one  hand,  have  been  made  not  simply  by  an  irre- 
sponsible Japanese  press,  but  by  several  of  the  more  reputa- 
ble and  generally  trustworthy  of  its  papers.  On  the  other 
hand,  all  similar  charges  are  met  by  Bishop  M.  C.  Harris3 

1  Editorial  in  the  Seoul  Press,  August  8,  1907. 

2  In  this  connection  it  should  be  remembered  that  the  Young  Men's 
Christian  Association  in  Seoul  is  heavily  subsidized  by  the  Residency- 
General  in  recognition  of  its  services  for  the  good  of  the  Koreans;  that 
Marquis  Ito  sent  a  message  of  welcome,  accompanied  by  a  gift  of 
10,000  yen,  to  the  "World's  Christian  Student  Federation"  at  its  meet- 
ing in  April,  1907,  in  Tokyo;    and  that  His  Excellency  has  taken  all 
possible  pains  to  assure  the  Christian  missionaries  in  Korea  of  his 
desire  for  their  active  co-operation,  by  use  of  the  moral  and  spiritual 
forces  which  they  wield,  with  his  plan  to  use  the  allied  economic  and 
educational  forces,  for  the  betterment  of  the  Korean  nation. 

3  Letter  to  the  Japan  Times,  published,  Tokyo,  May  9,  1907. 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  397 

with  the  assurance  "  because  of  full  knowledge  of  the  sit- 
uation in  Korea  covering  the  space  of  three  years,"  "that 
no  American  missionary  has  been  identified  with  political 
movements,"  .  .  .  but  that  "in  all  the  far-reaching  plans 
of  the  Residency- General  to  promote  the  welfare  of  Korea 
and  Japan  as  well,  the  missionaries  are  in  hearty  accord." 
Yet  again,  on  the  other  side,  repeated  representations  of  a 
quite  opposite  character  to  that  of  Bishop  Harris  have  fre- 
quently appeared,  both  in  letters  and  papers,  in  the  United 
States  and  in  England. 

The  exact  truth  is  with  neither  of  these  contentions;  to 
appreciate  it  one  must  bear  in  mind  the  difficult  situation  in 
which  the  missionaries  in  Korea  have  been  placed.  All  the 
wrongs  (as  their  story  has  been  told  in  the  last  chapter), 
real  or  fancied,  important  and  trivial  but  true,  or  important 
and  trivial  but  falsely  alleged,  have  been  appealed  to  them  by 
their  Korean  converts  and  also  by  Korean  adventurers,  with 
claims  for  sympathy  and  for  assistance.  What  was  said  of  the 
Cretans  in  old  times  may  be  said  of  the  Koreans  to-day: 
they  are  liars  quite  generally.  Even  when  they  do  not  intend 
deliberately  to  deceive,  they  find  it  impossible  to  refrain  from 
gross  exaggeration.  On  the  other  hand,  the  missionaries, 
where  their  sympathies  are  wrought  upon  by  their  own  chil- 
dren in  the  faith — all  the  more  on  account  of  the  mental  and 
moral  weakness  of  .those  children — are  apt  to  be  over- 
credulous,  and  are  not  always  sane  in  judgment  or  prudent 
in  conduct.  These  virtues  are  perhaps  too  much  to  expect; 
perhaps  they  are  not  even  the  appropriate  virtues  for  a 
Christian  woman  when  one  of  her  own  sex  exposes  bruises 
which  she  alleges  to  have  been  inflicted  by  the  hands  of  a 
"heathen  coolie."  At  such  moments  it  is  not  easy  to  re- 
member the  deeds  of  her  own  countrywomen  in  the  South, 
or  of  her  own  countrymen  in  San  Francisco,  in  the  Philip- 
pines, or  in  South  Africa. 


398  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Furthermore,  it  cannot  be  truthfully  claimed  that  none  of 
the  missionaries  have  ever  meddled  in  politics  with  a  view 
to  injure  the  Japanese  Government  in  Korea.  It  was,  in 
fact,  an  American  missionary  who,  after  one  of  his  colleagues 
upon  the  mission  field,  while  expressing  his  sympathy  with 
the  Korean  Emperor,  had  refused  to  send  a  secret  telegram 
asking  for  interference  from  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  did  send  such  a  telegram;  and  when  sternly  rebuked 
by  the  diplomatic  representative  of  his  own  nation  for  con- 
duct so  unbecoming  to  his  profession,  he  replied  with  an 
assertion  of  the  .right  to  do  as  he  pleased  in  all  such  matters. 
Others  have,  from  time  to  time,  allowed  themselves  to  be 
used  by  the  more  wily  Korean,  whether  un-Christian  official 
or  Christian  convert,  so  as  to  involve  themselves  in  implied 
complicity  with  political  intrigues.  If  it  is  a  mistake — or 
even  worse  than  a  mistake — to  circulate  reports  of  evil  with- 
out examination  into  their  accuracy,  and  to  allow  in  all  one's 
attitude  toward  the  powers  that  be,  unverified  suspicions  and 
secret  hostilities  to  dominate,  then  a  considerable  number  of 
the  missionary  body  in  Korea  must  plead  guilty  in  the  past 
to  this  mistake.  But  most  of  all  has  this  body  suffered  from 
its  failure  to  disavow  and  practically  to  dissolve  all  connection 
with  those  other  "  foreign  friends"  of  Korea  who  have  during 
the  past  few  years  brought  upon  her  Emperor  and  her  people 
much  more  of  misery  and  of  harm  than,  has  been  wrought  by 
all  the  irresponsible  and  disreputable  Japanese  adventurers 
taken  together. 

A  marked  improvement,  however,  in  the  relations  between 
the  missionaries  and  the  Japanese  Government  in  Korea  has 
characterized  the  treatment  of  the  more  recent  events.  For, 
although  there  was  inevitable  a  certain  intensifying  of  hostile 
feeling  by  the  uprising  and  bloodshed  that  followed  the  Con- 
vention of  July,  1907,  the  active  co-operation  of  the  most 
influential  majority  of  the  missionaries  in  the  plans  of  the 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  399 

Residency- General  for  the  future  welfare  of  the  Korean  people 
seemed  to  have  been  by  this  time  assured.  During  the 
recent  troublous  times — in  spite  of  charges  to  the  contrary — 
they  appear  to  have  remained,  almost  without  exception, 
faithful  to  their  true  calling  and  reasonably  effective  in  limit- 
ing or  preventing  the  yet  sorer  evils  that  might  have  followed 
the  abdication  of  the  Emperor,  the  disbandment  of  the 
Korean  army,  and  the  tightening  of  Japan's  grip  upon 
Korean  internal  affairs.  With  certain,  not  very  numerous, 
exceptions — and  those  mostly  among  the  spurious  Christians 
who  used  the  title  only  as  a  cover  of  selfish  or  foolish  political 
aims — the  converts  also  acquitted  themselves  well.  The 
Korean  Christians  and  their  foreign  leaders  were  favored  by 
the  Japanese  Government  with  special  protection  when  the 
mad  and  cruel  Korean  mob  rose  up,  in  veritable  ancient 
fashion,  to  plunder  and  to  murder  atrociously,  in  spots 
favorable  to  such  activity  throughout  the  land.  Thus  in  the 
emergency  which,  thanks  to  the  wisdom  of  both  kinds  of  re- 
forming and  restraining  forces,  was  after  all  far  less  great 
than  might  have  been  expected,  Korea  made  at  comparatively 
small  expense  a  great  step  forward  toward  the  position  of  a 
truly  civilized  and  prosperous  nation.  And  if  these  same  two 
forces — the  economical  and  judicial,  backed  by  the  police 
and  the  military,  and  the  moral  and  spiritual  force  on  which 
Christianity  relies — continue  to  work  in  accord,  as  we  may 
hope  they  will,  the  full  redemption  of  Korea  in  [the  nearer 
future  is  assured. 

Of  the  administrative  mistakes  which  have  hindered  the 
progress  of  modern  missions  elsewhere  there  appear  to  have 
been  comparatively  few  in  Korea.  Among  such  mistakes, 
perhaps  the  following  two  are  most  important:  first,  the 
failure  to  occupy  strongly  certain  strategic  centres  with  mis- 
sionary institutions,  and  to  postpone  the  occupation  of  other 
less  important  places  for  the  work  of  the  trained  native  helper, 


400  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Bible-reader,  evangelist,  or  pastor;  and,  second,  the  rivalries 
and  waste  of  denominational  jealousy  and  exclusiveness.  Jn 
Korea,  the  two  cities  of  Seoul  and  Pyeng-yang  have  wisely  been 
selected  as  centres  in  which  to  build  up  a  "  plant "  of  Christian 
institutions  of  various  kinds — churches,  schools,  hospitals,  and 
seminaries  for  the  training  of  native  assistants.  Further,  the 
two  largest  missionary  bodies — namely,  the  American  Metho- 
dists and  American  Presbyterians,  have  worked  together  with 
admirable  respect  for  each  other's  rights,  and  in  sincere  co- 
operation. 

There  is  one  other  matter  of  policy  touching  the  adminis- 
tration of  missions  which,  in  this  connection,  it  is  fitting  to 
mention,  but  about  which  anyone  with  the  views  of  the 
writer  might  well  hesitate  to  express  publicly  an  opinion. 
It  is  true,  however,  in  the  judgment  of  many  of  the  wisest 
friends  of  missions,  that  in  the  Far  East  the  sphere  of  woman 
in  missionary  work  should  be  more  carefully  guarded  and 
even  restricted.  It  is  impossible  to  make  the  inhabitants  of 
the  Orient,  in  general,  understand  the  propriety  of  foreign 
women  being  on  terms  of  intimacy,  even  as  religious  teach- 
ers, with 'native  young  men.  On  the  other  hand,  women 
must,  as  a  matter  of  course,  be  employed  in  all  the  work 
of  the  most  intimate  character,  and  within  the  home  circle, 
which  concerns  their  own  sex.  It  is  also  true  that  not  a  few 
of  the  most  serious  difficulties  and  perplexing  cases  of  friction 
between  the  missionaries  and  the  diplomats  and  civil  magis- 
trates, when  traced  to  their  real  origin,  are  due  to  the  more 
personal  and  emotional  way  in  which  matters  of  public 
interest  are  regarded  by  the  gentler  sex.  The  legitimate 
work  of  foreign  Christian  women  in  the  Far  East  is  invalu- 
able; but  it  should  be  private  and  confined,  for  the  most 
part  if  not  exclusively,  to  intercourse  with  native  girls  and 
women.  In  all  administrative  affairs,  and  in  general  where 
the  missions  come  into  closest  contact  with  the  civil  authori- 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  401 

ties;  it  is  better  to-day,  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  early  Christi- 
anity, that  her  voice  should  not  be  heard. 

The  recent  history  of  the  planting  and  growth  of  Christian 
missions  in  Korea  shows  a  period  of  bloody  persecution  which 
was  followed,  less  than  a  score  of  years  later,  by  a  period  of  re- 
markably rapid  increase.  In  1707  some  French  priests  from 
Peking  visited  the  northern  border  of  the  peninsula,  but  were 
unable  to  enter  the  country.  It  was  three-quarters  of  a 
century  later  (1783)  that  Thomas  Kim,  a  Korean  youth  who 
had  been  converted  to  Christianity  under  the  Portuguese 
bishop,  Alexandria  de  Gloria,  came  over  from  China  and 
succeeded  in  introducing  the  foreign  religion  into  his  native 
land.  A  year  later  a  royal  decree  was  issued  against  Chris- 
tianity, and  Thomas  Kim  was  executed  for  his  faith's  sake. 
But,  although  two  other  Korean  Christians  who  had  been 
baptized  in  Peking  were  beheaded  in  Seoul,  December  8, 
1791,  the  new  religion  began  to  spread  rapidly  in  Korea. 
The  usual  course  of  such  efforts  was  being  run:  others  were 
executed,  a  new  edict  in  1802  was  issued  against  Christianity, 
and  yet,  "this  added  much  to  the  knowledge  of  the  faith." 
In  1836,  Pierre  Maubant,  the  second  Papal  nominee  to  the 
post  of  Vicar  Apostolic  of  Korea,  reached  Seoul  after  an 
arduous  journey;  and  when  three  years  later  still  another 
murderous  edict  was  issued,  this  Christian  Apostle  and  the 
two  other  French  missionaries  who  had  subsequently  joined 
him,  under  instruction  from  one  of  the  three,  Bishop  Imbert, 
surrendered  themselves  to  martyrdom  in  the  hope  of  staying 
the  persecution  of  their  Korean  converts.  Still  Christianity 
continued  to  grow  in  the  number  of  its  adherents;  and  by  the 
year  1860,  the  foreign  religion  counted  nearly  20,000  native 
converts.  Then  began,  in  the  early  part  of  1866,  the  infamous 
slaughter  of  the  faithful  under  the  Tai  Won  Kun,  the  father 
of  the  "amiable"  ex-Emperor,  and  the  man  "with  the  bowels 
of  iron  and  the  heart  of  stone."  Within  some  five  years 


402  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

about  one-half  of  the  entire  number  of  converts  had  paid  the 
penalty  with  their  lives. 

It  is  not  well  to  forget  these  facts  of  history  in  connection 
with  our  estimate  of  the  character  of  the  Korean  Government, 
the  Korean  people,  and  the  development  of  Christian  Missions 
in  Korea.  Under  the  son  of  this  cruel  father,  the  late  Em- 
peror, precisely  the  same  thing  might  have  taken  place  at 
any  time,  had  it  been  for  his  interests,  in  his  own  sight,  to 
have  it  so;  and  had  it  not  been  for  his  fear  of  the  conse- 
quences, after  foreign  control  began  to  exercise  some  restraint 
over  native  cruelty.  It  is  foolish  to  suppose  that  the  religion 
or  the  life  of  the  Protestant  missionary,  for  example,  who  has 
served  the  ex-Emperor  as  physician,  are  any  dearer  to  His 
Majesty  than  were  the  religion  and  the  services  of  the  French 
Roman  Catholic  priests  to  the  Tai  Won  Kun.  The  first 
thing,  indeed,  which  the  earlier  treaties  with  foreign  nations 
demanded  as  their  right  was  the  "free  exercise  of  their 
religion  in  the  treaty  ports  for  the  subjects  of  the  signatory 
Powers;  nor  to  this  day  does  any  article,  expressly1  sanction- 
ing missionary  enterprise,  appear  in  any  of  the  treaties." 
That  the  Emperor,  when  freed  from  the  influence  of  the  Tai 
Won  Kun,  was  in  his  youth  somewhat  sincerely  inclined  to  a 
more  liberal  policy  toward  foreign  religions  is  undoubtedly 
true;  but  almost  as  undoubtedly,  that  his  kindness  toward 
American  missionaries  has  been  from  a  purely  political 
motive  and  that  his  use  of  them  has  been,  not  at  all  to  learn 
the  truths  of  the  Christian  religion,  but  to  discover  through 
them  new  and  improved  methods  of  soliciting  and  procuring 
"help"  from  so-called  Christian  nations. 

In  recent  years,  moreover,  repeated  instances  have  occurred 
of  the  indisposition  or  inability  of  the  Korean  Government  to 
protect  either  the  foreign  missionaries  or  their  native  converts. 

1  See  Problems  of  the  Far  East,  by  the  Hon.  George  N.  Curzon,  M.P, 
(1894),  pp.  192-197. 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  403 

During  the  second  Tong  Hak  uprising  in  the  South,  in  May 
of  1894,  the  American  missionaries  were  called  into  Seoul 
for  their  safe  protection.  The  Chinese  army  in  Korea  during 
the  Chino- Japan  war  was  everywhere  a  source  of  terror  to 
the  foreign  preachers  of  Christian  doctrine  and  to  their 
avowed  Korean  converts;  and  in  July  of  1894  a  French 
priest  was  murdered  by  Chinese  soldiers  at  Kong  Hyen,  near 
Asan.  On  the  contrary,  both  the  foreign  and  the  native 
Christians  felt  quite  free  from  anxiety  when  the  troops  of 
Japan  were  in  control  of  Korean  territory.  The  spirit  of  the 
official  classes  toward  the  foreign  religion  was  revealed  in 
clear  light  when  the  Korean  Minister  of  Education,  in  October 
of  1896,  issued  a  book  entitled  "The  Warp  and  Woof  of 
Confucianism,"  which  was  so  offensive  that  it  was  objected  to 
by  the  Foreign  Representatives  in  a  body  as  being  disrespect- 
ful to  them.  In  general,  the  capricious  favors  of  an  unscrupu- 
lous monarch,  who  would  readily  and  even  gladly  deliver  to 
death  those  whom  he  has  tried  to  make,  whether  with  success 
or  not,  his  tools  to  help  carve  a  way  through  confining  sur- 
roundings, are  a  poor  substitute  for  a  system  of  law  and 
justice,  as  a  soil  into  which  to  pour  the  seed  of  Christian  truth. 
There  are  said  now  to  be  thousands  of  native  Roman- 
Catholic  Christians  scattered  about  in  the  country  of  Korea. 
Many  of  the  priests,  who  are  natives,  live  with  their  converts ; 
but  it  is  the  policy  of  the  Church  to  have  every  one  of  its 
members  visited  once  in  each  year  by  his  spiritual  father. 
The  French  Catholic  Cathedral  (dedicated  May  29,  1898) 
and  establishment  is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  objects  in 
Seoul.  The  archbishop  in  charge  is  an  intelligent,  kindly,  and 
devout  man.  While  speaking  with  mild  disapproval  of  the 
treatment  received  by  his  converts  a  year  or  two  before  the 
arrival  of  the  Resident- General,  and  expressing  his  fear  that 
the  Koreans  might  inevitably  be  driven  to  the  wall  by  the 
multitudinous  incoming  of  a  sturdier  and  more  aggressive 


464  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

race,  he  gratefully  admitted  the  marked  improvement  in  con- 
ditions which  Marquis  Ito  was  bringing  to  pass.  To  "  the 
Church,"  however,  all  political  institutions  were  indifferent : 
Her  work  remained  ever  one  and  the  same,  and  ever  equally 
secure. 

The  story  of  Protestant  missionary  enterprise  in  Korea 
since  the  arrival,  in  June,  1883,  on  a  tour  of  inspection,  of 
Dr.  R.  S.  McClay,  has  been  frequently  told.  It  need  not  be 
repeated  here;  for  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  is  only  to  sketch 
in  barest  outline  the  relations  existing  between  the  reforms 
planned  by  the  Residency- General  and  the  welfare  of  Korea 
as  depending  upon  the  progress  of  the  Christian  religion  there. 
General  Foote,  who  was  then  United  .States  Minister,  pre- 
sented to  the  Emperor  a  statement  of  the  object  of  the  pro- 
posed mission  which,  it  was  understood,  would  be  encouraged 
to  work  most  acceptably  along  medical  and  educational 
lines.  The  summary  of  what  has  actually  been  accomplished 
along  these  particular  lines  has  already  been  given  (Chap. 
XIV).  Acting  on  the  suggestion  of  Dr.  McClay,  the  Board 
of  Missions  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  the 
United  States  sent  out  two  missionaries,  one  a  graduate  of  the 
College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons  in  New  York  City  (Dr. 
Scranton,  who,  after  a  long  and  useful  service  as  a  missionary, 
has  recently  been  made  a  Professor  in  the  Government 
Medical  School),  and  the  other  a  graduate  of  Drew  Theolog- 
ical Seminary,  Mr.  Henry  Gerhardt  Appenzeller.  Before 
these  gentlemen  reached  Seoul  the  bloody  events  of  1884  had 
taken  place.  In  1887  followed  Rev.  George  Heber  Jones;  and 
in  the  same  year  Rev.  Franklin  Ohlinger  was  transferred  from 
China  to  Korea.  Other  helpers  were  added  to  this  mission, 
as  the  demands  of  the  work  grew,  until  the  report  for  1907 
shows  that  forty-two  foreign  members  and  thirty-five  Korean 
preachers,  ten  of  whom  are  ordained,  are  engaged  under  its 
auspices  in  the  work  of  propagating  Christianity  on  Korean 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  405 

soil.  In  recent  years  the  more  visible  signs  of  success  have 
greatly  increased.  The  summary  of  statistics  presented 
before  the  Korean  Mission  Conference  at  its  session  of  June, 
1906,  was  as  follows:  Full  members,  2,810;  probationers, 
9,981;  Sunday  Schools,  116,  with  teachers  and  scholars 
numbering  8,943.  But  only  a  year  later,  the  total  connection 
of  the  Church  of  this  denomination  in  Korea  was  given  at 
23,453 — of  which  19,570  were  probationers — a  gain  over  the 
preceding  year  of  10,664,  or  nearly  one  hundred  per  cent. 
During  the  same  year  3,553  persons  had  been  baptized. 

It  was  on  April  5,  1885,  that  Rev.  H.  G.  Underwood  .of  the 
American  Presbyterian  Mission  arrived  and  "formally 
opened  Protestant  clerical  mission  work."  He  was  followed, 
on  June  2ist  of  the  same  year,  by  J.  W.  Heron,  M.D.,  who 
died  in  Seoul,  July  26,  1890.  To  this  mission  other  workmen 
were  added  from  time  to  time;  and  in  November  of  1892  a 
mission  of  the  Southern  Presbyterian  Church  of  America  was 
started  by  Messrs.  Junkin,  Reynolds,  and  Tate,  and  a  Miss 
Davis.  Still  later,  on  September  7,  1898,  three  clergymen  of 
the  Canadian  Presbyterian  Church — Messrs.  Foote,  McRae, 
and  Dr.  Grierson — arrived  to  open  a  mission  of  this  denomi- 
nation. These  several  Presbyterian  missions  have  been,  on 
the  whole,  well  supported  from  the  churches  at  home,  well 
manned,  and  more  than  ordinarily  successful  in  planting  and 
upbuilding  the  various  classes  of  missionary  institutions. 
The  table  compiled  from  the  council  statistics  of  these 
missions  for  the  year -ending  June  30,  1906,  makes  the  follow- 
ing exhibit  of  results.  The  total  number  of  missionaries  was 
then  77,  of  whom  41  were  women,  and  12  were  engaged  in 
medical  work.  The  native  helpers  numbered  373,  of  whom 
8 1  were  unordained  preachers,  and  201  teachers  (men),  with 
42  Bible  women  and  women  teachers.  The  fruits  of  these 
laborers  were  20  fully  organized  churches  and  628  out- 
stations,  or  places  of  "regular  meeting,"  of  which  481  were 


4o6  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

put  down  as  "  entirely  self-supporting."  Connected  with  them 
were  12,546  communicants,  of  which  2,811  had  been  ad- 
ded during  the  year,  and  44,587  "adherents,"  with  11,025 
"catechumens"  and  36,975  members  of  the  Sunday  Schools. 
The  average  attendance  upon  these  regular  meetings  was 
35,262;  and  the  total  of  native  contributions  was  $27,418.89, 
as  reckoned  in  United  States  gold.  When  the  poverty  of  the 
average  Korean  Christians  and  the  difficulties  of  various 
kinds  which  hinder  them  from  the  regular  discharge  of  any 
of  their  obligations  are  considered,  this  showing  of  attendance 
at  church  services  and  of  liberality  in  giving  cannot  be 
pronounced  otherwise  than  remarkable.  The  increase  in 
every  form  of  work  since  the  report,  the  statistics  of  which 
have  just  been  quoted,  is  no  less  remarkable  in  the  Presby- 
terian Missions  than  in  that  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church. 

These  two  American  missions  are,  among  those  of  the  Prot- 
estant churches,  much  the  most  active  and  successful  in 
showing  such  results  as  can  take  the  form  of  a  statistical 
exhibit.  But  other  missionary  enterprises  are  worthy  of 
mention.  In  September  of  1890  Bishop  Corfe  (whose 
diocese  was  Korea  and  Shing-king,  i.  e.,  Manchuria)  arrived 
at  Seoul  to  establish  a  Church  of  England  Mission.  He  was 
preceded  by  Dr.  Julius  Wiles,  Deputy  Surgeon-General 
Retired,  who  opened  medical  work  for  the  mission  and  who 
was  succeeded  in  1893  by  Dr.  E.  H.  Baldock.  With  the  addi- 
tional help  of  other  clergy  and  lay  helpers,  and  of  sisters  of 
St.  Paul's,  Kilburn,  the  customary  forms  of  church  work — 
evangelizing,  translating  and  printing  a  Korean  prayer- 
book  and  other  publications,  hospital  work  and  care  of 
the  poor  and  sick — have  been  undertaken  with  that  rare 
good  sense  and  self-denial  which  characterize  so  much  of 
the  missionary  enterprise  of  this  Church. 

It  was  not  until  1899,  in  the  month  of  January,  that  the 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  407 

Russian  Church  Mission  arrived  in  Seoul.  It  consisted  of  the 
Rev.  Deacon  Nicholas;  and  he  was  followed  by  the  Right 
Rev.  Archimandrite  Chrisanff  and  Mr.  Jonas  Levtchenke, 
Psalmist,  on  February  12,  1900.  The  dwellings  and  school- 
houses  for  this  mission  were  established  near  the  West 
Gate  and  were  first  occupied  in  the  summer  of  the  same 
year. 

No  complete  account  or  just  estimate  of  the  Christian  forces 
now  at  work  for  the  religious  and  moral  uplift  of  Korea  could 
be  given  without  emphasizing  the  presence  and  fine  progress 
of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  at  Seoul.  The 
operations  of  this  association  did  not  begin  until  November 
of  1901.  Their  work  has  been  much  embarrassed  in  the 
country  places  by  the  illicit  use  of  their  name  to  cover  and 
commend  various  unwise  and  sometimes  corrupt  and  danger- 
ous attempts  at  so-called  "  reform,"  or  even  at  sedition  and 
revolution.  In  Seoul  itself — where  is  the  only  legitimate  and 
recognized  Y.  M.  C.  A. — some  of  their  make-believe  or  would- 
be  friends  have  done  their  good  cause  much  more  of  damage 
than  has  been  done  by  any  of  their  avowed  enemies.  In 
spite  of  these  embarrassments,  however,  and  of  others  to  which 
fuller  reference  need  not  be  made  in  this  connection,  the 
work  of  this  benevolent  association  has  been  most  successful. 
As  we  have  already  said,  the  value  of  this  work  for  the 
moral,  industrial,  and  educational  reform  of  the  Koreans  has 
been  officially  recognized  by  a  generous  subsidy  from  the 
Government.  Its  efficiency  and  extent  cannot  fail  to  be 
greatly  increased  when  its  new  building,  so  commodious  and 
centrally  located,  has  been  in  use  for  a  number  of  years. 
The  writer  gratefully  acknowledges  that  during  his  visit  in 
April  and  May,  of  1907,  it  was  largely  through  the  manly 
courage  and  good  sense  of  its  foreign  officers,  and  of  that 
portion  of  its  native  official  and  other  membership  which 
followed  the  lead  of  these  foreign  officers,  that  he  was  able 


4o8  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

to  leave  any  impression  upon  the  Korean  Christians.  Indeed, 
in  the  capital  city,  no  other  means  were  found  for  even  saying 
a  private  word  to  the  Koreans  in  behalf  of  education,  morals, 
or  religion.  It  was  only  when  away  from  the  pernicious  influ- 
ences of  the  Court — notably  at  Pyeng-yang — that  the  courage 
of  the  missionaries  seemed  sufficient  to  sustain  a  platform  for 
such  efforts,  on  the  part  of  the  guest  of  Marquis  Ito,  in  the 
churches  themselves.1 

The  "Great  Revival"  of  1906-1907,  which  added  so 
much  to  the  encouragement  of  the  missionaries  and  to  the 
number  of  their  converts,  can  best  be  understood  in  its  most 
characteristic  features  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  what  has 
already  been  said  about  the  nature  of  the  Koreans  themselves. 
After  a  period  of  silent  and  slow  preparation,  a  sudden  seizure 
of  the  impulse  to  repent  and  confess  came  upon  the  entire 
body  of  native  Christians,  and  even  carried  away  the  foreign 
teachers  and  preachers  also.  Night  after  night,  and  several 
times  each  Sunday,  the  churches  were  crowded  to  suffoca- 
tion with  hearers  of  their  strange  words,  and  witnesses  of  their 
unwonted  actions.  Especially  at  Pyeng-yang  did  the  people, 
both  Christian  and  non-Christian,  flock  in  from  the  surround- 
ing country — first  to  "look-see,"  perhaps,  and  then  to  partici- 
pate in  these  extraordinary  performances.  In  numerous 
instances,  the  penitent  rose  with  an  appearance  of  enforced 
calmness  and  began  quietly  to  tell  of  the  sinful  experiences 
of  the  years  both  preceding  and  following  his  adoption  of  the 
Christian  name.  But  as  he  proceeded  his  excitement  grew; 
his  voice  rose  to  a  higher  and  yet  higher  pitch  and  assumed 
a  tone  of  ever-increasing  shrillness;  sobbing  and  wailing  in- 
tervened; and,  finally,  he  began  to  sway  to  and  fro,  to  beat 
his  head  against  the  mats,  sometimes  so  violently  as  to  cause 
the  blood  to  flow;  then  he  fell  to  the  floor,  where  he  ended 
his  experiences  in  a  complete  nervous  collapse  and  lay  pros- 

1  Compare  the  narratives  of  Part  I,  pp.  37-64;  90-111. 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  409 

trate,  frothing  at  the  mouth  and  groaning  piteously,or  became 
quite  unconscious. 

What  may  be  considered  as  an  official  account  by  an  eye- 
witness of  two  of  these  remarkable^  meetings  gives  the  follow- 
ing description  of  the  phenomena: 

All  were  prostrate  on  their  faces,  and  all  alike,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  few  who  liad  already  received  a  blessing,  were  in  an 
agony  of  repentance.  Sometimes  they  beat  their  foreheads  and 
hands  against  the  floor,  sometimes  they  literally  writhed  in  an- 
guish, roaring  as  if  the  very  devils  were  tearing  them;  and  then 
at  last,  when  there  seemed  no  more  power  of  resistance  left,  they 
would  spring  to  their  feet  and  with  terrible  sobs  and  crying,  pour 
out  their  confessions  of  sin.  And  such  confessions!  It  was  like 
hell  uncovered.  Everything  from  murder,  adultery,  and  the  most 
inconceivable  abominations  of  uncleanness,  through  arson,  drunk- 
enness, robbery,  thieving,  lying,  down  to  hatreds,  spites,  and 
envyings,  was  emptied  out,  a,nd  with  what  shame  and  loathing! 

At  the  meeting  of  the  second  evening,  before  even  the  leader 
took  his  place,  the  tide  of  prayer  began  rising,  and  although  three 
young  men  arose  one  after  another,  and  attempted  to  lead  in 
prayer,  their  voices  were  not  heard  in  the  tumult  of  intercessory 
supplication  that  broke  out.  As  prayer  continued  the  building 
began  to  resound  with  groans  and  cries.  Many  fell  forward  on 
their  faces  and  wallowed  on  the  floor.  When  something  like  a 
semblance  of  order  could  be  restored,  an  opportunity  was  given  to 
all  who  had  any  ill-feeling  toward  any  one  present,  or  who  had 
wronged  any  of  the  others  in  any  way,  to  make  confession  and 
ask  forgiveness.  In  a  very  few  minutes  the  meeting  was  resolved 
into  numberless  groups  of  students  weeping  in  each  other's  arms. 
Nor  did  the  members  of  the  faculty  escape;  and  it  was  interesting 
to  see  them,  with  perhaps  two  or  three  boys  weeping  at  their 
knees,  and  others  hanging  about  their  necks. 

In  the  later  stages  of  the  revival,  those  who  went  to  mock 
remained  to  be  carried  away  by  the  same  impulse ;  and  when 
they  were  exhorted  by  the  foreign  or  native  helpers,  either 


4io  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

at  their  place,  wedged  in  among  the  others  (for  the  Korean 
audiences  sit  packed  together  on  the  floor),  or  were  dragged 
or  helped  forward  to  the  altar,  they  experienced  the  relief  and 
happiness  of  "being  converted." 

From  the  principal  centres  of  this  religious  movement  it 
spread  to  surrounding  places — sometimes  through  those  who 
returned  home  from  these  centres,  sometimes  through 
delegates  sent  out  from  the  same  centres.  One  of  the  most 
remarkable  of  the  latter  cases  was  the  experience  of  the 
delegates  deputed  from  Pyeng-yang  to  visit  Chemulpo.  At 
first,  when  the  church  at  the  latter  place  saw  the  brethren 
from  the  northern  city,  heard  their  tale,  and  witnessed  their 
testimony  and  procedure,  they  were  greatly  alarmed.  It  was 
even  suggested  that  one  of  the  visiting  brethren  should  be 
put  to  death  as  an  emissary  of  the  devil,  if  not  a  devil  him- 
self. But  the  zeal  of  the  preachers  from  Pyeng-yang 
finally  triumphed;  and  the  church  at  Chemulpo  itself  be- 
came the  scene  of  similar  confessions  and  convulsions  of 
penitence. 

The  student  of  similar  phenomena  in  the  past  will  have 
no  difficulty  in  understanding  and  appreciating  at  their  true 
value  the  experiences  of  the  "great  revival"  in  Korea. 
Similar  emotional  manifestations  are  common  enough  on  a 
variety  of  occasions,  as  well  in  the  Korea  of  the  past  as  in  the 
Korea  of  to-day.  Indeed,  at  the  very  time  that  the  native 
Christians  of  Pyeng-yang  were  wailing  and  sobbing,  and 
beating  their  heads  on  the  mats,  on  account  of  their  sins,  the 
multitude  of  the  same  city  were  doing  the  same  things  because 
they  had  been  deceived  into  believing  that  their  Emperor  was 
to  be  dethroned  and  carried  off  to  Japan.  From  time 
immemorial,  the  proper  official  way  to  attract  the  attention 
of  His  Majesty  to  any  request  of  his  officials,  or  of  the  people, 
has  been  to  make  somewhat  similar  demonstrations  before 
the  palace  gates  or  inside  the  palace  walls.  In  a  word,  such 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  411 

is  the  Korean  mode  of  manifesting  any  strong  emotional 
excitement. 

But  to  discredit  altogether  the  sincerity  of  these  confessions 
or  thje  genuineness  of  the  following  conversion  would  be  a 
no  less  grave  mistake,  from  every  point  of  view,  than  to  place 
a  specially  high  value  on  them  because  of  their  abnormal  * 
psychological  character.  It  is  not  strange  that  the  Korean 
populace  is  Korean  still,  when  it  suddenly  takes  to  some  new 
kind  of  reform,  or  adopts  some  new  kind  of  religion.  Such 
strong  and  contradictory,  and  even  convulsive,  reactions 
characterize  the  native  in  his  politics,  his  morals,  his  religion, 
and  his  behavior  generally.  The  amiably  cruel  Emperor, 
the  smiling  and  good-natured  but,  on  occasion,  atrociously 
barbarous  court  official,  the  peasant  who  seems  as  gentle  as 
his  ox  until  he  turns  upon  the  ox,  or  upon  his  neighbor,  or 
upon  the  local  magistrate,  to  tear  in  pieces,  reveal  essentially 
the  same  psychical  characteristics. 

But  how,  it  may  be  asked,  as  to  the  kind  of  Christian 
father  or  mother,  Christian  citizen,  Christian  leader,  which 
will  be  evolved  from  this  multitude  of  converts  ?  Here,  again, 
the  only  fair  and  reasonable  answer  will  avoid  the  two  alike 
tempting  but,  in  the  end,  disappointing  extremes.  During 
the  writer's  stay  in  Korea,  Dr.  George  Heber  Jones,  who 
fifteen  years  before  had  been  barred  outside  of  the  gates, 
preached  at  Kang  Wha  to  a  congregation  of  fifteen  hundred 
willing  hearers,  about  one  thousand  of  whom  were  professing 
Christians.  Multitudes  in  the  whole  Island  were  just  then 
turning  toward  Christianity — entire  schools  and,  in  some 
instances,  almost  entire  villages,  were  professing  the  new 
faith.  In  their  burning  zeal  the  converts  were  even  resorting 
to  a  sort  of  boycott  in  order  to  compel  recalcitrants  to  the 
adoption  of  this  foreign  religion.  Yet  when  a  colleague  of 

1  "Abnormal,"  i.  e.,  from  the  point  of  view  of  what  would  be  expected 
from  minds  of  a  higher  degree  of  culture  and  of  self-control. 


4i2  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

this  missionary,  a  member  of  the  same  mission,  was  a  few 
weeks  later  urged  to  baptize  some  sixty  converts  in  one  village, 
he  refused  to  comply  with  the  request  in  the  case  of  a  single 
person,  because  examination  showed  that  none  of  the  sixty 
had  as  yet  sufficient  knowledge  of  what  was  really  meant  by 
proclaiming  themselves  Christians. 

Here,  again,  however,  the  student  wise  in  the  things  of  man's 
religious  experience  will  not  depreciate  the  value  of  such 
early  but  ignorant  steps,  wherever  they  are  taken  from  a 
motive  not  too  degradedly  selfish,  toward  a  higher  spiritual 
life.  The  infancy  of  the  Church  in  Korea  will,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  be  characterized  by  the  infantile  condition  of  the 
Korean  mind,  united,  alas !  with  a  morality  that  is  far  removed 
from  the  innocence  customarily  attributed  to  the  human 
infant.  But  already  the  later  experiences  of  modern  missions 
fully  authorizes  the  expectation  that  what  Roman  Catholicism 
earlier  did  to  fit  the  Koreans  for  martyrdom  under  the  Tai 
Won  Kun,  will  be  much  surpassed  in  what  the  combined 
efforts  of  all  the  Christian  institutions  now  planted  in  Korea 
will  do  to  fit  her  children  for  a  nobler  and  happier  life  under 
the  Japanese  Protectorate. 

In  fine,  the  Japanese  Protectorate  under  the  present 
Resident-General,  and  the  foreign  Christian  missionaries  with 
their  native  converts,  command  the  two  sources  of  power 
and  influence  which  must  unitedly  work  for  the  uplift  of  the 
Korean  nation.  That  His  Excellency,  the  Marquis  Ito,  takes 
this  view  of  the  matter,  he  has  both  by  speech  and  action 
made  sufficiently  clear.  That  the  majority  of  the  missionary 
body  are  taking  the  same  view  of  the  same  matter  is  becoming 
every  day  more  clear.  If,  through  any  honest  difference  of 
opinion  upon  important  matters  of  policy,  the  leaders  of 
these  two  forces  should  fail  to  co-operate  in  the  future,  it 
would  be  deplorable  indeed.  But  if  either  one  of  the  two 
should,  whether  through  avoidable  misunderstanding  or 


MISSIONS  AND  MISSIONARIES  413 

because  of  the  decline  in  an  intelligent  and  conscientious 
desire  for  the  good  of  Korea,  refuse  to  co-operate,  the  refusal 
would  be  no  less  of  a  misfortune;  it  would  be  also  worthy 
to  be  called  a  crime. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

JULY,    1907,    AND   AFTERWARD 

A  TELEGRAM  from  The  Hague  to  the  Orient,  bearing  date 
of  July  i,  1907,  announced  the  arrival  of  three  Koreans  at 
the  place  of  Peace  Conference,  and  the  publication  over  their 
signatures,  in  a  French  paper  called  The  Peace  Conference 
Times,  of  an  open  letter  addressed  to  the  delegates  of  all  the 
Powers.  In  their  letter  these  men  claimed  to  have  been  au- 
thorized by  the  Emperor,  in  a  document  bearing  his  seal,  to 
take  part  in  the  Conference  as  the  delegates  of  Korea.  In 
this  connection  they  repeated  the  time-worn  falsehoods  as 
to  the  conditions  under  which  the  Treaty  of  November,  1905, 
was  signed,  and  as  to  the  present  treatment  accorded  by  the 
Japanese  to  the  ruler  and  people  of  Korea.  In  view  of  these 
alleged  facts  they  made  in  behalf  of  their  country  an  appeal 
for  pity  and  for  relief  to  all  the  foreign  delegates.  As  was 
inevitable  from  the  beginning,  the  efforts  of  this  deputation  at 
The  Hague  came  to  naught;  and  after  the  death  of  one  of 
their  number  they  departed  to  carry  on  their  mission  of  ap- 
peal, first  in  England  and  afterward  in  the  United  States. 
So  thoroughly  discredited,  however,  had  the  word  of  such 
Koreans  and  of  their  " foreign  friends"  already  become  in 
the  hearing  of  all  acquainted  with  the  facts,  that  the  mission 
met  with  as  little  real  success  in  these  other  foreign  countries 
as  at  The  Hague.  So  far  as  its  original  purpose  was  con- 
cerned, it  ended  in  failure — miserable  and  complete.  But  in 
Korea  itself  the  results  were  by  no  means  transient  or  trivial. 

The  news  of  the  appearance  of  the  so-called  Korean  dele- 

414 


JULY,  1907,  AND  AFTERWARD  415 

gates  at  the  World's  Peace  Conference  was  received  in  Seoul 
on  July  3d.  It  will  be  remembered  (see  p.  83  f.)  that — to 
quote  from  the  Seoul  Press  of  the  next  day — "  when  Mr.  H. 
B.  Hulbert  left  for  Europe  under  peculiar  circumstances, 
there  were  rumors  that  he  was  charged  by  the  Emperor  of 
Korea  with  some  political  mission  to  The  Hague."  This 
paper  then  goes  on  to  say  that  it  did  not  attach  much  im- 
portance to  the  rumor  at  the  time,  being  unable  to  reconcile 
such  an  enterprise  with  the  reputation  for  shrewdness  of  the 
chief  foreign  commissioner,  and  also  "with  the  expressions 
of  good  will  and  friendship  which  the  Emperor  of  Korea  has 
repeated  to  Japan  and  her  Representative  over  and  over 
again."  But  there  were  even  more  important  reasons  why 
the  rumor  should  seem  antecedently  incredible.  No  one  of 
the  present  Cabinet,  or  of  the  previously  existing  Cabinet,  ap- 
peared to  have  any  knowledge  of  so  serious  an  affair  of 
State;  no  one  of  either  of  these  bodies  had  even  been  con- 
sulted by  His  Majesty  about  the  possibility  of  such  an  under- 
taking. "  Even  the  best  informed  did  not  dream  that  a  step 
so  palpably  useless  and  treacherous  would  be  taken."  The 
conclusion  followed  that,  if  the  rumor  proved  true,  the  act 
was  ascribable  to  the  Emperor  alone,  as  "  instigated  no  doubt 
by  the  coterie  of  irresponsible  native  counsellors  and  their  ob- 
scure foreign  coadjutors  whose  mischievous  advice  has  already 
so  often  led  His  Majesty  astray."  Such  a  movement  was  ren- 
dered all  the  more  untimely,  not  to  say  unnecessary,  because 
under  the  new  Ministry  and  the  wise  and  kindly  leadership  of 
the  Residency- General,  all  the  foreign  and  domestic  affairs  of 
the  country  were  now  proceeding  in  the  most  orderly  and 
satisfactory  manner.  Whatever  ground  for  protest  and  ap- 
peal against  the  treatment  of  Korea  by  the  Japanese  Govern- 
ment may  have  existed  in  the  past,  everything  in  the  situa- 
tion of  the  spring  and  early  summer  of  1907  called  for  hopeful 
and  active  co-operation  on  the  part  of  all  forces  interested  in 


416  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

the  welfare  of  the  land.  The  stirring  of  the  elements  always 
ready  for  riot,  sedition,  arson,  and  bloodshed,  was,  under 
the  circumstances,  both  a  folly  and  a  crime. 

On  the  morning  of  the  same  day  on  which  the  news  of  the 
affair  at  The  Hague  reached  Seoul,  the  Emperor  sent  the 
Minister  of  the  Imperial  Household  to  Marquis  Ito  with  a 
message  disavowing  all  responsibility  for  the  delegation  and 
for  the  protest  addressed  by  it  to  the  Peace  Conference. 
This  was  precisely  what  the  delegation  had  already  informed 
all  Europe  His  Korean  Majesty  would  certainly  do.  But 
then  there  was  their  word  against  the  Emperor's  word;  and 
they  claimed  that  the  document  in  their  possession  bore  the 
Imperial  seal.  There  was,  moreover,  for  the  very  few  who 
knew  the  circumstances  under  which  the  alleged  foreign  mem- 
ber of  the  delegation  left  Seoul,  the  previous  private  confession 
of  His  Majesty  made — to  be  sure — only  after  repeated  private 
denials.  The  situation  was,  therefore,  so  far  as  the  testimony 
of  Koreans  went,  rather  complex.  His  Majesty  was  now 
publicly  denying  what  he  had  formerly,  in  private,  both 
affirmed  and  denied;  his  delegates  were  publicly  affirming 
what  he  was  publicly  denying,  but  had  previously,  in  private, 
both  denied  and  affirmed.  To  the  Minister  of  the  Imperial 
Household  Marquis  Ito  replied  that,  in  view  of  all  the  cir- 
cumstances which  had  come  to  his  knowledge — not  the  least 
significant  of  which  was  the  public  declaration  of  the  Im- 
perial sanction,  made  by  the  delegation  and  supported  by  its 
offer  to  submit  its  credentials  to  the  inspection  of  the  Con- 
ference— the  force  of  His  Majesty's  disavowal  was  weakened. 
At  any  rate,  the  situation  had  now  become  so  grave  that  the 
only  course  the  Resident- General  could  pursue  was  to  sub- 
mit the  whole  matter  to  his  own  Government  and  await  its 
decision.1 

1  With  regard  to  the  personnel  of  the  Korean  members  of  this  com- 
mission, the  head  was  Yi  Sung-sol,  who  had  formerly  been  a  Cabinet 


JULY,  1907,  AND  AFTERWARD  417 

The  news  from  The  Hague  at  once  provoked  a  lively  dis- 
cussion on  the  part  of  the  Japanese  press  and  the  political 
parties  as  to  the  proper  treatment  of  Korea  and  her  Emperor 
for  this  breach  of  treaty  faith.  Meetings  were  held  by  the 
leaders  of  the  principal  parties  to  determine  the  policy  which 
should,  in  their  judgment,  be  followed  by  the  Government; 
and  several  of  the  more  prominent  statesmen  allowed  them- 
selves to  be  interviewed  for  publication  of  their  views  upon 
this  important  national  affair.  Count  Okuma  was  reported 
as  having  suggested  that  His  Majesty  of  Korea,  in  case  he 
had  authorized  a  scheme  so  lacking  in  common  sense,  could 
not  be  in  his  right  mind,  and  might,  not  improperly,  be  placed 
under  restraint.  Count  Inouye,  whose  successful  manage- 
ment of  Korean  affairs  at  the  close  of  the  Chino- Japan  war 
entitled  his  judgment  to  public  confidence,  thought  that  if 
the  Emperor  could  be  induced,  or  compelled,  to  come  to 
Japan  and  see  for  himself  what  Japan  had  done  by  way 
of  recent  developments,  and  what  Japan  wished  to  do  for 
Korea,  he  would  voluntarily  cease  from  his  unfriendly  and 

Councillor.  With  him  were  associated  Yi  Chun-yong,  a  Judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  and  Yi  Wi-chong,  who  was  at  one  time  secretary  to  the 
Foreign  Legation  at  Russia.  The  two  former  seem  to  have  taken  the 
Siberian  route  to  St.  Petersburg,  where  they  arrived  about  April  2oth, 
and  were  met  there  by  Yi  Wi-chong.  The  Russian  Government,  being 
at  that  time  negotiating  a  treaty  with  Japan  which  was  to  recognize 
in  most  explicit  terms  the  Japanese  Protectorate  over  Korea,  and  give 
to  it  a  "free  hand"  in  the  management  of  Korean  affairs,  naturally 
enough,  gave  no  encouragement  to  the  Koreans  or  to  their  "foreign 
friend." 

In  view  of  the  large  sum  of  money  which,  according  to  rumor  at  the 
time,  the  Emperor  contributed  to  this  purpose,  it  seems  scarcely  credi- 
ble that  the  Korean  delegates  should  feel  compelled  at  The  Hague 
"to  stay  at  a  low-class  hotel  where  the  meals  cost  about  50  sen"  (or 
25  cents  in  gold),  as  the  cable  despatch  reports.  No  less  a  sum  than 
240,000  yen  was  subsequently  traced  to  expenditure  upon  this  futile 
scheme;  and  100,000  yen  additional  was  suspected  on  good  grounds. 
In  addition  to  this,  as  the  event  proved,  it  cost  the  Emperor  his  crown. 


J 


418  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

treacherous  policy.1  Of  the  political  bodies,  the  Constitu- 
tionalists, or  party  now  in  control  of  the  Government,  took 
the  entire  matter  most  quietly,  and  expressed  itself  as  entirely 
ready  to  leave  the  whole  situation  in  the  hands  of  the  Resident- 
General,  as  advised  or  instructed  by  the  Tokyo  authorities. 
Prime  Minister  Saionji,  to  whose  cool  judgment  and  quiet 
temper  the  nation  is  greatly  indebted  at  all  times  for  allaying 
tendencies  to  undue  excitement,  assured  the  Daido  delegates, 
on  July  1 2th,  that  the  policy  toward  Korea  had  already  been 
established  and  that  there  was  really  no  need  of  making 
"much  fuss"  over  the  matter.  The  Progressives,  or  strong- 
est anti- Government  party,  took  the  most  vehement  position 
of  urgency  for  prompt  action  and  for  punitive  measures. 
Some  of  its  papers  went  so  far  as  again  to  call  in  question 
the  entire  policy  of  Marquis  Ito,  with  its  plan  for  secur- 
ing a  peaceful  development  of  Korea  under  a  Japanese  Pro- 
tectorate; but  only  a  few  called  for  immediate  forcible  an- 
nexation. 

On  the  whole,  and  considering  the  great  and  repeated  pro- 
vocations offered  to  Japan  by  the  Korean  Emperor  and  his 
Government,  the  Japanese  nation  kept  its  temper  in  a  truly 
admirable  way.  While  agreeing  that  some  means  must  at 
last  be  found  to  stop  the  interference  of  His  Majesty  of 
Korea  with  all  attempts  to  reform  internal  affairs,  and  the 
better  in  the  future  to  control  foreign  intrigues,  the  general 
opinion  favored  strongly  an  increased  confidence  in  the 
character  and  policy  of  the  existing  Residency- General. 
The  situation  in  Japan  itself  was  faithfully,  described  as 
follows  in  the  Japan  Times,  in  its  issue  of  July  i4th: 

1  It  should  be  understood  that  the  proposal  of  Count  Inouye  did  not 
contemplate  taking  the  Korean  Emperor  prisoner  and  carrying  him 
off  by  force  to  Japan.  It  expressed  simply  the  belief  on  the  Count's 
part  that  the  shortest  way  of  making  Korea  accept  Japan's  guidance 
was  to  cause  the  Emperor  to  become  acquainted  with  Japan  by  per- 
sonal observation. 


JULY,  1907,  AND  AFTERWARD  419 

The  Hague  Deputation  question  continues  to  attract  serious 
attention.  The  whole  Press  is  practically  unanimous  in  urging 
the  adoption  of  such  measures  as  would  effectively  prevent  the 
recurrence  of  similar  incidents.  The  matter  has  also  been  taken 
up  by  nearly  all  the  important  political  parties,  and  the  attitude 
adopted  by  them  is  tantamount  to  an  endorsement  of  the  view  so 
unanimously  expressed  through  the  newspaper  organs.  Very 
little  attempt  has  been  made,  however,  to  point  out  in  a  concrete 
form  the  line  of  action  to  be  taken.  It  is  evident  that,  although  a 
small  section  of  the  Press  unfavorably  criticizes  Marquis  Ito's 
leniency  in  dealing  with  the  Emperor,  the  important  organs  of 
opinion  have  so  much  confidence  in  His  Excellency's  ability  to 
cope  with  the  situation  with  his  characteristic  wisdom  and 
efficiency,  that  they  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  trouble  him  with 
suggestions  at  to  matters  of  procedure  and  detail. 

\ 

The  Tokyo  Government  acted  with  promptness  and  de- 
cision in  dealing  with  this  latest  phase  of  the  everlasting 
Korean  problem.  On  July  i6th  it  was  publicly  announced 
that  the  Government  had  determined  to  "go  along  with  the 
opinion  of  the  people,"  and  adopt  "a  strong  line  of  action 
toward  Korea."  Viscount  Hay  asm',  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  was  forthwith  appointed  to  convey  in  person  the 
views  of  the  Government  to  His  Excellency  Marquis  Ito, 
and  was  commissioned  with  the  disposal  of  Korean  affairs 
after  consultation  with  the  Marquis  on  the  spot.  Hayashi 
bore  with  him  several  somewhat  different  plans,  among  which 
decision  was  to  be  reached  after  his  arrival  at  Seoul;  but  all 
of  them  contemplated  leaving  the  details  very  largely  to  the 
Resident- General.  It  is  pertinent  to  say,  with  authority,  in 
this  connection,  that  none  of  these  plans  included,  much  less 
suggested  or  required,  the  abdication  of  the  Emperor;  al- 
though, as  we  have  already  seen,  Marquis  Ito  had  become 
quite  conclusively  convinced  that  the  reform  of  Korean 
affairs  could  never  be  accomplished  with  the  co-operation  of 


420  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

the  present  ruler  of  the  land,  or,  indeed,  otherwise  than  in 
spite  of  his  utmost  opposition. 

Meantime  there  was  a  great  stir  taking  place  among  the 
members  of  the  different  political  factions  in  Seoul.  The 
Emperor  himself,  now  that  his  own  foolish  treachery  had 
been  brought  to  light,  was  daily  becoming  more  alarmed. 
The  Court  intriguers  of  necessity  shared  in  this  growing  alarm. 
Before  the  departure  of  Viscount  Hayashi,  the  Imperial  Gov- 
ernment of  Japan  had  received  a  telegram  from  Mr.  Motono, 
Minister  in  St.  Petersburg,  which  stated  that  the  new  Russo- 
Japanese  Convention  would  recognize  Japan's  rights  in 
Korea  even  more  completely  than  the  Peace  of  Portsmouth 
)  .0-  had  done.  The  fact,  now  made  evident  to  the  Korean 
officials,  that  the  backs  of  all  the  nations  were  turned  toward 
Mhe  verbal  and  practical  falsehpods-ef  their  Emperor  and  of 
his  intriguing  foreigrTTnends,  and  that  the  judgment  of  all 
those  wise  in  respect  of  Korean  history  and  Korean  charac- 
^ .  teristics  saw  no  hope  for  their  country  except  through  the 
aid  of  Japan,  tended  as  a  matter  of  course  to  deepen  this 
alarm.  And  when  the  determination  of  the  Japanese  Gov- 
ernment to  send  one  of  its  Cabinet  Ministers  to  Korea,  in 
order  at  once  and  finally  to  put  an  end  to  Korea's  power,  in 
treachery,  intrigue,  and  assassination,  to  work  her  own  woe 
and  to  jeopard  the  peace  of  the  Far  East,  was  made  known, 
the  consternation  in  Seoul  officialdom  reached  its  height. 

The  only  persons  among  the  Koreans  who  could  be  relied 
upon  in  any  measure  to  save  the  country  from  well -merited 
punishment  for  this  last  act  of  insane  treachery  on  the  part  of 
the  Emperor  and  his  Court  were  the  newly  appointed  Korean 
Cabinet.  It  was  a  great  piece  of  good  fortune  for  Korea  that 
this  Cabinet  had  previously  been  appointed  and  pledged  to 
fidelity  to  the  interests  of  the  whole  country  rather  than  to 
connivance  at  His  Majesty's  intriguing  ways.  On  the  whole, 
in  this  extreme  emergency^  the  Korean  Government  behaved 


JULY,  1907,  AND  AFTERWARD  421 

wisely,  patriotically,  and  in  a  way  to  secure  the  crown  and 
the  people  against  the  worst  results  of  the  Emperor's  policy. 
They  began  their  efforts,  indeed,  in  the  vain  attempt  to  dis- 
cover the  plans  of  the  Japanese  Government  through  the 
Resident- General  and  to  get  His  Excellency's  advice  upon  the 
best  course  of  action  on  their  part  in  order  to  meet  these  plans. 
But  Marquis  Ito  refrained  alike  from  indicating  the  steps 
which  would  probably  be  taken  by  Japan  and  also  from  ad- 
vising as  to  the  steps  which  it  was  best  for  Korea  to  take. 

The  Korean  Ministers  were  by  this  time  holding  daily 
conferences  of  several  hours  in  length.  The  result  of  these 
conferences  was  the  conclusion  on  their  part  that  the  abdica- 
tion of  the  Emperor  offered  the  only  escape  from  the  direful 
condition  in  which  he  had  himself  placed  his  country.  As 
early,  therefore,  as  an  audience  on  the  6th  of  July,  they 
began  collectively  and  individually  to  urge  upon  His  Majesty 
the  advisability  of  this  step.  There  is  no  doubt  that  they 
gave  this  advice  the  more  heartily  because,  apart  from  the 
present  dilemma,  they  were  profoundly  convinced  that  he 
was  a  bad  and  dangerous  ruler,  and  that  comparatively  little 
could  be  done  for  the  improvement  of  Korean  affairs  as  long 
as  he  sat  upon  the  throne  of  Korea.  The  occasion  was  op- 
portune, then,  for  terminating  such  weak  misrule  and 
perversion  of  Imperial  power. 

Viscount  Hayashi  arrived  at  Seoul  on  the  evening  of  July 
1 8th.  In  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day  Marquis  Ito  visited 
the  Palace  at  the  request  of  the  Korean  Emperor.  He  found 
that  His  Majesty  had  no  suggestions  to  make  as  to  the 
solution  of  the  grave  problem  before  the  two  governments: 
His  Majesty  continued,  however,  to  disavow  the  Hague 
delegation  and  to  suggest  the  severe  punishment  of  its  mem- 
bers.1 The  more  important  reason  for  the  request  for  this 

1  The  mixture  of  ignorance  and  craft  of  which  the  ex-Emperor  is 
capable  was  illustrated  in  a  humorous  way  by  his  inquiry  of  Marquis 


422  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

interview  appeared  when  the  Emperor  stated  that  his  Cabinet 
were  urging  him  to  abdicate  and  suggested  that  he  supposed 
they  were  prompted  to  do  so  by  Marquis  Ito.  This  the 
Marquis  emphatically  denied:  so  far  as  the  Resident- General 
was  concerned,  the  Korean  Cabinet  were  in  all  respects 
acting  on  their  own  initiative.  His  Excellency  was  himself 
still  awaiting  the  decision  of  his  own  Government  at  Tokyo ; 
and  until  that  was  announced  he  had  nothing  to  say  as  to 
what  Japan  was  likely  to  do.  Moreover,  since  he  was  not  a 
subject  of  the  Emperor  of  Korea  he  should  refrain  from 
advising  His  Majesty  in  any  way  about  the  matter  of  his 
abdication.1 

Meantime  the  Korean  Cabinet  continued  to  press  upon  the 
Emperor  the  necessity  of  his  abdication  in  the  interests  of  the 
country  at  large.  On  Wednesday,  July  lyth,  they  proceeded 
in  a  body  to  the  Palace,  where  His  Majesty  is  said  to  have 
kept  them  waiting  for  their  audience  with  him  for  nearly 
three  hours.  At  this  audience,  however,  they  again  explained 
the  nature  of  the  present  crisis,  and  again  besought  him  to 
save  his  country  by  sacrificing  the  crown  for  himself.  After 
a  prolonged  interview  they  are  said  to  have  left  the  Emperor 
much  enraged  and  still  refusing.  But  on  the  next  day  the 
Cabinet  Ministers  repaired  again  to  the  Palace  at  a  quarter 
to  five  in  the  afternoon.  Before  this  meeting  could  be  over 
the  train  bearing  the  Viscount  Hayashi  would  roll  into  the 
South- Gate  Station.  The  whole  affair  was  culminating; 
the  national  crisis  was  imminent.  For  more  than  three  hours 

Ito  whether  the  Japanese  Government  would  not  undertake  the  arrest 
and  punishment  of  his  own  emissaries  at  The  Hague!  The  reply  was, 
of  course,  that  Japan  could  no  more  do  such  a  thing  in  Holland  than 
Korea  in  Japan. 

1  This  double  policy  of  soliciting  advice  and  help  from  Marquis  Ito, 
as  his  most  true  and  powerful  friend,  while  acting  contrary  to  the  ad- 
vice when  given  and  rendering  the  help  difficult  or  impossible,  has 
characterized  the  Emperor  throughout  in  his  relations  with  the  Marquis. 


JULY,  1907,  AND  AFTERWARD 


423 


the  Ministers  pressed  for  their  Sovereign's  abdication,  with  a 
most  bold  and  insistent  attitude.  It  was  after  eleven  o'clock 
that  evening  when  the  Emperor  began  to  show  signs  of  giving 
way,  and  ordered  summons  to  be  issued  to  assemble  the 
Elder  Statesmen.  These  men  soon  arrived  at  the  Palace 
and  held  a  secret  conference  among  themselves,  during  which 
they,  too,  arrived  at  the  decision  that  there  was  really  no 
alternative  for  the  Emperor;  he  should  yield  to  the  advice 
of  his  Ministers;  and  the  throne  was  at  once  memorialized 
to  this  effect.  At  three  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  the  nine-, 
teenth  the  Emperor  agreed  to  retire  in  favor  of  the  Crown 
Prince,  and  a  decree  announcing  this  fact  was  published  in/ 
the  Official  Gazette  at  a  later  hour  the  same  morning. 

From  about  ten  o'clock  on  Thursday  night  the  people  began 
to  assemble  in  front  of  the  Palace.  By  one  o'clock  in  the 
morning  of  Friday  the  crowd  had  become  dense  and  began 
to  show  threatening  signs  of  a  riotous  character;  but  they 
dispersed  by  degrees  without  serious  incidents,  until  at  dawn 
scarcely  one  hundred  men  were  remaining  in  the  neighbor- 
hood. Rumors  of  the  Emperor's  abdication  were  spread 
abroad  after  sunrise;  and  again  the  crowd  of  excited  people 
increased  in  front  of  the  main  gate  of  the  Palace  and  in  the 
streets  .adjoining.  A  hand -bill,  circulated  from  the  same 
source  of  so  much  pernicious  misinformation — namely,  the 
native  edition  of  the  Korean  Daily  News — which  asserted 
that  the  Emperor  had  been  deposed  and  was  going  to  be 
carried  off  to  Japan  by  Viscount  Hayashi,  added  greatly  to 
the  popular  excitement.  The  Korean  police,  under  Police 
Adviser  Maruyama,  however,  had  the  matter  well  in  hand; 
and  having  been  earnestly  advised  by  the  Resident- General 
to  avoid  all  unnecessary  harshness,  they  succeeded  in  dis- 
persing the  people  with  only  a  few  trifling  encounters.  In  the 
work  of  restoring  order  and  preventing  riot  and  bloodshed, 
the  police  were  doubtless  greatly  assisted  by  a  timely  down- 


, 


424  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

pour  of  rain.  For  of  all  people  under  the  sun  it  is  probable 
that  a  Korean  crowd  of  men,  with  their  expensive  and 
cherished  crinoline  hats  and  their  lustrous  white  raiment, 
most  object  to  getting  thoroughly  wet.  Patriotism  of  the 
intensest  heat  can  scarcely  bear  this  natural  process  of  cooling. 
At  7.15  P.  M.  on  July  igth  the  Korean  Minister  of  Justice 
called  on  the  Resident- General  and  delivered  to  him  the 
following  message  from  His  Majesty: 

In  abdicating  my  throne  I  acted  in  obedience  to  the  dictate  of 
my  conviction;  my  action  was  not  the  result  of  any  outside  advice 
or  pressure. 

During  the  past  ten  years  I  have  had  an  intention  to  cause  the 
Crown  Prince  to  conduct  the  affairs  of  State,  but,  no  opportunity 
presenting  itself,  my  intention  has  to  this  day  remained  unrealized. 
Believing,  however,  that  such  opportunity  has  now  arrived,  I  have 
abdicated  in  favor  of  the  Crown  Prince.  In  taking  this  step  I 
have  followed  a  natural  order  of  things,  and  its  consummation  is 
a  matter  of  congratulation  for  the  sake  of  my  dynasty  and  country. 
Yet  I  am  grieved  to  have  to  observe  that  some  of  my  ignorant  sub- 
jects, laboring  under  a  mistaken  conception  of  my  motives  and  in 
access  of  wanton  indignation,  may  be  betrayed  into  acts  of  violence. 
In  reliance,  therefore,  upon  the  Resident-General,  I  entrust  him 
with  the  power  of  preventing  or  suppressing  such  acts  of  violence. 

This  appeal  to  the  Residency-General  to  preserve  order  in 
Seoul  was  made  in  view  of  events  which  had  occurred  earlier 
in  the  afternoon  of  the  same  day.  About  a  quarter  to  four  a 
Japanese  military  officer  on  horseback  was  stopped  by  the 
mob  while  passing  in  front  of  the  main  gate  of  the  Palace; 
and  when  the  Japanese  policemen  in  the  Korean  service 
came  to  his  rescue  and  attempted  to  open  a  path  for  him 
through  the  crowd,  both  they  and  the  officer  were  more  or  less 
seriously  wounded  by  stones.  The  mob,  on  being  dispersed, 
retreated  in  the  neighborhood  of  Chong-no.  Here  a  party 
of  Korean  soldiers,  who  had  deserted  from  the  barracks  since 


JULY,  1907,  AND  AFTERWARD  425 

X 

the  previous  night,  joined  the  crowds  under  the  command  of 
an  officer.  Soon  after  five  o'clock  these  soldiers,  without 
either  provocation  or  warning,  fired  a  succession  of  volleys 
upon  a  party  of  police  officers,  killing  and  wounding  more 
than  a  score;  whereupon  the  fury  of  the  mob  broke  out  anew, 
and  several  more  were  killed  and  wounded  on  both  sides. 
The  total  number  of  police  officers  who  lost  their  lives  in  this 
way  was  ten,  and  some  thirty  or  more  others  were  more  or 
less  severely  wounded.1  After  this  dastardly  action  the 
Korean  soldiers  ran  away. 

As  to  the  unprovoked  character  of  this  deplorable  incident 
the  testimony  of  eye-witnesses  is  quite  conclusive.  Dr. 
George  Heber  Jones,  who  was  on  the  spot  soon  after  the  first 
sound  of  firing,  says:  "In  fact  all  through  the  excitement 
I  was  impressed  with  the  moderation  and  self-control  shown 
by  the  public  officers  in  dealing  with  the  crowds  which  had 
been  surging  about  them  since  Thursday  night.  Their  con- 
duct was  admirable."  After  narrating  the  experiences  of 
himself  and  his  companion  as  they  came  upon  the  dead  and 
wounded  lying  in  the  streets  and  alleys  of  the  district,  the 
wrecked  police-boxes  and  the  officers  covered  with  blood,  \ 
this  witness  goes  on  to  say :  "  The  Pyeng-yang  soldiers  in  the 
barracks  just  north  of  Chong-no,  becoming  restive,  in  the  after- 
noon broke  into  the  magazine  of  their  barracks  and  supplied 
themselves  with  ammunition.  One  company  of  them  then 
broke  out,  and  under  command — it  is  said,  of  a  captain  who 
was  mounted — suddenly  appeared  at  Chong-no  and  without 
warning  began  firing  on  the  policemen  who  were  trying  to 
preserve  order  in  the  crowds.  ...  A  mania  of  destructio 

1  It  was  subsequently  reported  that  the  number  of  Koreans  injured 
during  the  disturbances  of  this  Friday  was  210;  since  the  majority  of 
these  had  bullet  wounds  and  the  Japanese  police  were  not  armed  with 
rifles,  the  conclusion  is  inevitable  that  most  of  these  casualties  were 
occasioned  by  the  firing  upon  the  crowd  of  the  mutinous  Korean  sol- 
diers. 


.to  / 

ion/' 


426  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

took  possession  of  the  people  for  a  time,  and  there  are  reports 
of  assaults  on  Japanese  civilians  in  various  parts  of  the  city; 
and  from  what  I  personally  witnessed  there  is  little  doubt  of 
this,  that  the  scenes  of  violence  which  occurred  in  1884  were 
repeated  yesterday."1 

As  a  result  of  the  Emperor's  request  following  upon  this 
outbreak  of  serious  disorder,  the  city  of  Seoul  was  put  in 
charge  of  Japanese  police  and  gendarmes.  A  strong  body  of 
Japanese  troops  was  posted  outside  the  Palace,  and  four 
machine  guns  were  placed  in  front  of  the  Taihan  or  Main 
Gate.  A  battalion  of  infantry  was  summoned  from  Pyeng- 
yang,  and  a  squadron  of  the  artillery  regiment  at  Yong-san. 
The  riotous  outbreaks  were  now  mainly  directed  against  those 
Korean  officials  who  had  brought  about  the  abdication  of  the 
Emperor.  Over  one  thousand  rioters  assembled  near  the 
Kwang-song  Gate  and,  after  a  short  debate,  proceeded  to 
assault  and  set  on  fire  the  residence  of  the  Prime  Minister, 
Mr.  Yi  Wan-yong.  In  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the  Japanese 
troops  and  gendarmes,  as  well  as  of  the  fire  brigades,  a  large 
portion  of  the  residence  was  destroyed.  Part  of  a  Korean 
battalion  also  assaulted  the  prison  at  Chong-no,  where  the 
headquarters  of  the  Japanese  police  had  been  established,  but 
were  driven  away.  At  6  p.  M.  of  Tuesday,  July  23d,  a  huge 
crowd  assembled  and  "passed  resolutions"  that  at  sunset 
the  headquarters  of  the  II  Chin-hoi,  or  party  most  prominent 
in  its  demand  for  reforms,  should  be  set  on  fire,  and  after  this 
several  other  buildings  were  marked  for  destruction.  These 
attempts  were,  however,  frustrated;  but  the  villas  of  Mr.  Yi 
Kun-tak  and  Mr.  Yi  Chi-yung,  the  former  Ministers  of  War 
and  of  Home  Affairs,  outside  the  small  East  Gate,  were 
• 

1  These  quotations  are  from  the  article,  the  publication  of  which  was 
followed  by  the  incident  already  narrated  (p.  355,  note).  This  ex- 
ample is  typical  of  the  temper  and  methods  of  the  anti- Japanese  leaders 
and  their  foreign  friends. 


JULY,  1907,  AND  AFTERWARD  427 

burned.  Finally,  these  demonstrations  of  rowdyism  came 
to  a  point  of  cessation,  and  the  usual  order  of  Seoul  was 
restored.  During  the  period  of  rioting  the  Korean  crowd 
was,  as  usual,  tolerably  impartial  in  the  distribution  of  its 
favors;  in  addition  to  Japanese  and  Koreans,  a  few  Chinese 
and  other  foreigners  were  assaulted  or  shot  at. 

All  these  events  made  it  entirely  obvious,  even  to  the  most 
prejudiced  observer,  that  the  Korean  Government  was  still 
as  incapable  of  securing  and  preserving  order  in  -times  of 
popular  excitement  as  it  has  ever  been.  It  could  not  guar- 
antee the  safety  of  its  own  officials  or  of  foreigners  of  any 
nationality,  without  outside  assistance.  Unless  the  controlling 
influence  of  the  Japanese  authorities  had  been  exercised,  there 
cannot  be  the  slightest  doubt  that  a  frightful  reign  of  anarchy 
and  bloodshed  would  have  ensued  upon  the  abdication  of  the 
Emperor;  and  no  one  acquainted  with  the  Korean  mob, 
when  once  let  loose,  will  venture  to  predict  how  many,  and 
whom,  'it  might  have  involved.  Thus  far  these  authorities 
had  done  nothing  beyond  lending  an  indispensable  support 
and  assistance  to  the  Korean  Government.  They  were 
acting  wholly  in  its  interests  as  centralized  in  the  newly 
declared  Emperor  and  in  the  Cabinet  Ministers.  One 
other  thing,  however,  was  also  made  equally  obvious.  The 
Korean  army  could  not  be  trusted;  its  continuance  as  at 
present  constituted  was  an  intolerable  menace  to  both 
governments,  as  well  as  to  the  interests  of  the  people  at 
large.  It  was  intrinsically  worthless  for  the  legitimate  pur- 
poses of  an  army,  and  dangerous  in  the  extreme  as  a  force 
to  provoke  and  to  intensify  all  manner  of  lawlessness.  If 
it  had  not  been  -for  the  mutinous  action  of  these  undis- 
ciplined troops,  who  became  centres  of  all  the  forces  of 
sedition,  arson,  and  murder,  there  would  probably  have 
been  little  or  no  bloodshed  connected  with  the  events  of 
July,  1907. 


428  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  Korean  Ministers  were 
influenced  by  patriotic  motives  in  unanimously  and  urgently 
demanding  the  abdication  of  the  Emperor.1  It  imme- 
diately became  evident,  however,  that  His  Majesty  did 
not  intend  really  to  abdicate,  but  that  he  was  continuing  his 
old  tricks  of  intrigue,  double-dealing,  and  instigating  assas- 
sination. There  was  well-founded  suspicion — to  quote  a 
statement  based  on  trustworthy  information — that  "the 
unfortunate  incident  of  Friday  last  and  the  mutinous  spirit 
prevailing  among  the  Korean  troops  were  the  result  of  an 
understanding  between  the  ex-Emperor  and  his  abettors  and 
supporters  in  Seoul."  There  was  even  proof  of  a  conspiracy  to 
have  the  Korean  troops  rise  in  a  body,  kill  the  entire  Korean 
Cabinet,  and  rescue  from  their  dominating  influence  his 
"oppressed"  Majesty.  Whatever  may  be  the  full  measure 
of  truth  as  to  these  and  other  secret  intrigues  and  plots  for 
sedition  and  murder,  certain  actions  were  publicly  avowed 
that  were  unmistakably  in  open  defiance  of  the  new  Emperor 
and  his  Ministers,  as  well  as  complete  proof  that  by  abdication 
His  Majesty  meant  something  quite  different  from  what  the 
word  was  properly  held  to  signify.  [This  Korean  word  was 
indeed  capable  of  two  interpretations;  it  was,  however,  the 
term  customarily  employed  to  signify  the  relinquishment  of 
Imperial  control  and  responsibility,  while  at  the  same  time 
"saving  the  face "  of  the  person  abdicating  and  often  increas- 
ing his  real  influence  for  evil] 

At  midnight  on  Saturday,  July  2oth,  the  ex-Emperor 
summoned  to  the  Palace  and  personally  appointed  Pak 

1  This  is  perhaps  the  place  to  deny,  authoritatively  and  finally,  that 
Marquis  Ito  procured,  counselled,  or  even  gave  consent  to,  the  act  of 
abdication.  Indeed,  the  members  of  the  Residency- General,  and  the 
Japanese  in  Seoul  generally,  who  approved  of  the  more  strenuou 
measures  to  be  taken  against  Korea,  regretted  to  have  the  abdication 
take  place.  To  use  the  expression  of  one  of  them:  "It  dulled  the  edge 
of  the  Japanese  sword  " 


JULY,  1907,  AND  AFTERWARD  429 

Yong-hio  to  be  "  Minister  of  the  Imperial  Household."1 
Upon  this  Mr.  Pak  had  the  impudence  to  call  upon  Marquis 
Ito  on  the  following  Sunday  morning  and  announce  his 
appointment.  It  is  probable  that  he  did  not  meet  with  a 
very  cordial  reception,  or  succeed  well  in  impressing  His 
Excellency  with  the  dignity  and  value  of  his  new  office. 
Not  satisfied  with  this  practical  retraction  of  his  own  deposi- 
tion of  Imperial  functions,  when  the  Cabinet  submitted  to  the 
Throne  for  Imperial  signature  a  draft  of  an  edict  calling  upon 
the  people  to  keep  peace  and  order,  the  ex-Emperor  prohibited 
his  son,  now  the  reigning  Emperor,  from  signing  it  and  in- 
sisted that  the  edict  should  be  issued  in  his  own  name. 
In  view  of  all  this  manceuvering,  the  Cabinet  Ministers  spent 
another  whole  night  closeted  with  the  ex-Emperor:  they 
emerged  from  this  new  contention  with  a  renewed  and  per- 
fectly positive  declaration  of  abdication.  At  the  same  time 
the  new  Emperor  issued  over  his  own  name  an  edict  in  which 
his  subjects  were  warned  against  all  disloyalty  to  him, 
and  were  exhorted  to  turn  their  energies,  in  reliance  upon 
his  guidance,  to  the  advancement  of  civilization  and  of  the 
national  interests. 

1  It  should  be  understood  that  this  office  is  the  most  important  and 
influential  of  all  the  Korean  offices,  so  far  as  private  transactions  with 
the  Emperor  are  concerned.  Now  Pak  Yong-hio,  after  a  life  of  idle- 
ness and  debauchery  in  Japan,  whither  he  had  fled  some  years  before, 
and  where  he  had  been  supported  by  the  kindness  of  Japanese  and 
Korean  friends,  had  recently  been  pardoned  and  allowed  to  return  to 
Korea.  In  petitioning  for  permission  to  return,  Pak  dwelt  in  pathetic 
terms  on  his  "home-sickness,"  and  expressly  promised  in  the  future  to 
refrain  from  political  intrigue.  But  he  had  scarcely  set  foot  on  the 
soil  of  Korea  before  he  began  a  most  dishonest  and  disgraceful  course 
of  political  intrigue.  A  little  more  than  twenty-four  hours  after  his 
pseudo-appointment  as  Minister  of  the  Imperial  Household,  the  Cabinet 
Ministers  ordered  his  arrest,  and  he  was  subsequently  condemned  to 
be  punished  with  eighty  lashes  and  banished  for  life  to  the  Island  of 
Quelpart.  Such  are  the  vicissitudes  of  Korean  political  careers  when 
most  free  from  foreign  influence! 


430  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Nothing  could,  of  course,  be  done  toward  settlement  of 
the  problem  of  future  relations  between  the  Governments  of 
Korea  and  Japan  until  public  order  was  restored.  But 
speculation  was  eager  and  varied  as  to  what  would  then  take 
place:  for  neither  had  the  Marquis  Ito  disclosed  his  views 
upon  this  subject,  nor  had  the  instructions  of  Minister 
Hayashi  been  made  known  to  the  public.  The  telegrams 
which  came  into  Seoul  from  all  quarters  showed  that  the 
civilized  world,  both  diplomatic  and  business,  expected  the 
out-and-out  annexation  of  Korea  by  Japan,  and  the  conse- 
quent dethronement  of  the  Imperial  house.  The  Koreans 
themselves  expected  little  less;  in  addition  to  this  they  feared 
the  immediate  and  open  humiliation  of  having  the  ex-Emperor 
carried  off  to  the  enemies'  country.  Indeed,  it  was  this 
severe  calamity  which  the  Korean  Cabinet  hoped  to  mitigate 
by  procuring  His  Majesty's  abdication.  In  the  same  hope 
the  most  numerous  of  the  several  Korean  societies  of  an  alleged 
patriotic  character — the  //  Chin-hoi,  or  "  All-f or-Progress 
Society" — sent  in  a  petition,  or  "pathetic  memorial,"  to  the 
Residency-General.  After  acknowledging  "the  policy  of 
mildness  and  conciliation"  which  had  won  for  His  Excellency 
the  hearts  of  the  Korean  people,  the  memorial  proceeds  in 
substance  as  follows:  "The  offence  which  the  Emperor  has 
committed  in  connection  with  the  Hague  question  is  great 
as  a  mountain;  His  Majesty  has  been  very  deficient  in  having 
a  proper  sensa-of  what  he  owes  to  Japan.  But  what  fault  is 
there  in  the  people  who  know  nothing  about  the  affair? 
Or  what  culpability  in  the  land  and  soil  of  Korea  ?  They  are 
in  no  way  related  to  the  dynasty  of  Korea.  When  we  think 
over  these  things  we  cannot  stop  the  flow  of  tears  in  a  thousand 
drops.  Your  Excellency,  we  pray  you  to  have  mercy  on  the 
mountains  and  seas  of  Korea  and  to  place  in  a  position  of 
safety  the  20,000,000  souls,  the  3,000,000  homesteads,  and  the 
nation  of  500  years."  [The  customary  expedient  of  Korean 


JULY,  1907,  AND  AFTERWARD  431 

rhetoric  is  to  be  noted  in  doubling  the  number  of  the  popula- 
tion of  the  peninsula.] 

It  has  been  said  of  the  Japanese  that  they  treat  no  one  else  t  % 
so  generously  as  their  defeated  and  prostrate  enemy.  How-  • 
ever  this  may  be,  it  is  matter  of  historical  truth  that  after 
some  particularly  aggravating  offence  from  Korea,  what 
Western  nations  generally  would  regard  as  an  excess  of  chival- 
ric  and  totally  unappreciated  kindness  has  quite  uniformly 
characterized  the  treatment  accorded  to  this  country  by  the 
Japanese  Government.  The  Bismarckian  policy  of  "  making 
your  enemy  cough  up  all  you  can  when  you  have  him  by  the 
throat"  has  never  been  the  policy  of  Japan  in  dealing  with 
the  peninsula.  And  yet,  at  last,  it  should  have  been  perfectly 
evident  to  every  true  friend  of  both  countries  that  the  Korean 
Government — traditionally  corrupt,  cruel,  and  regardless  of 
the  Korean  nation — must  no  longer  be  allowed  to  stand 
between  this  nation  and  the  plans  for  bringing  it  into  an 
improved  internal  condition  and  into  safer  relations  with 
foreign  Powers.  That  formal  annexation  was  never  con- 
templated by  the  Tokyo  Government  became  evident  when, 
on  the  evening  of  July  2ist,  a  congratulatory  telegram  was 
received  by  the  new  Emperor  from  His  Imperial  Majesty, 
the  Emperor  of  Japan.  To  this  telegram  a  reply  was  sent 
on  the  next  day,  which  read,  in  effect,  as  follows:  "By 
the  order  of  my  Imperial  father  I  have  ascended  the 
throne  at  this  difficult  crisis,  and  being  conscious  of  my 
unworthiness,  I  am  filled  with  apprehensions.  I  beg  Your 
Majesty  to  accept  my  profound  thanks  for  »Your  Majesty's 
courteous  telegram  of  congratulations.  I  warmly  recip- 
rocate Your  Majesty's  wishes  for  still  more  intimate  rela- 
tionship between  the  two  countries  and  between  our  Im- 
perial Houses." 

After  a  number  of  consultations  between  Minister  Hayashi 
and  the  Residency- General,,  and  between  the  Japanese  repre-. 


432  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

sentatives  and  the  Korean  Cabinet  (who,  in  their  turn,  con- 
sulted among  themselves  and  with  the  new  Emperor),  at 
noon  of  Wednesday,  July  24th,  Marquis  Ito  handed  over  to 
the  Korean  Government  a  document  conveying  Japan's 
proposals  as  the  basis  of  a  new  Japanese-Korean  agreement. 
After  the  Korean  Ministers  had  again  conferred  with  one 
another,  the  Premier  and  the  Minister  of  War,  at  four  o'clock 
p.  M.  of  the  same  day,  had  a  brief  audience  with  their  Emperor. 
Other  conferences  continued  through  the  whole  of  this 
memorable  night — with  the  result  that  at  a  later  audience 
Mr.  Yi  Wan-yong,  the  Premier,  was  invested  by  His  Majesty 
with  authority  to  sign  the  new  Convention.  It  is  understood 
that  on  this  occasion,  as  on  that  former  equally  memorable 
night  in  November  of  1905,  Marquis  Ito  used  the  authority 
given  him  to  modify  some  of  the  details,  so  as  to  make 
them  seem  less  harsh  while  preserving  the  substance  of  the 
contract,  in  order  to  "save  the  face"  of  the  Korean 
Government.  When  this  Convention  was  published  in  the 
Official  Gazette,  the  Korean  politicians  of  the  Palace 
"gang"  were  congratulating  themselves  on  having  es- 
caped so  easily  from  the  risk  of  a  punitive  expedition  to 
which  their  Emperor,  by  their  own  assistance,  had  sub- 
jected them;  the  Korean  Cabinet  were  congratulating 
themselves  on  the  deliverance  of  their  country  from  the 
peril  of  annexation;  while  the  majority  of  the  Korean  peo- 
ple, even  in  Seoul,  seemed  -quite  indifferent  to  what  had 
happened. 

Immediately  upon  the  conclusion  of  the  new  Convention 
Marquis  Ito  summoned  to  his  residence  the  principal  Resi- 
dency-General officials  and  acquainted  them  with  its  terms. 
He  also  informed  them  that  he  should  himself  adhere  con- 
stantly and  firmly  to  the  policy  of  carrying  out  its  stipulations; 
and  he  exhorted  them  to  bear  in  mind  what  he  had  just  said 
and  to  spare  no  pains  to  discharge  their  own  duties  with 


JULY,  1907,  AND  AFTERWARD  433 

moderation  and  efficiency.  The  officials,  in  their  turn, 
congratulated  the  Resident- General  upon  his  brilliant  suc- 
cess, and  promised  their  co-operation  in  the  new  plans  now 
before  them. 

The  Agreement  of  July  24,  1907,  definitively  places  the 
enactment  of  all  laws  and  ordinances,  the  administration  of 
all  important  Korean  Government  affairs,  and  all  official 
appointments  which  relate  to  internal  administration,  under 
the  control  of  the  Japanese  Resident- General.  Its  preamble 
renews  the  assertion  which  has  governed  the  policy  of  Marquis 
Ito  throughout — namely,  that  the  motive  is  to  be  found  in 
"  the  early  attainment  of  the  prosperity  and  strength  of  Korea," 
and  the  "speedy  promotion  of  the  welfare  of  the  Korean 
people."  Moreover,  it  pledges  the  Korean  Government  to 
keep  judicial  affairs  distinct  from  administrative  affairs. 
With  regard  to  the  appointment  and  dismissal  of  officials  of 
the  higher  rank,  whether  native  or  foreign,  it  is  specified  that 
the  consent  of  the  Resident- General  must  be  secured;  and 
also  that  his  recommendations  for  the  appointment  of  Japan- 
ese to  official  positions  shall  be  followed.  Taken  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Convention  of  November,  1905,  therefore,  the 
present  condition  of  Korea  is  undoubtedly  that  of  a  country 
completely  dependent  upon  Japan  for  both  internal  govern- 
ment and  also  for  commercial  and  diplomatic  relations  with 
all  foreign  countries.  For  the  present  the  autonomy  of 
Korea,  except  so  far  as  it  is  preserved  in  certain  customs 
and  laws  which  even  the  source  of  control  would  be  forced 
to  regard,  and  in  the  nominal  preservation  of  the  Ko- 
rean crown  and  its  Cabinet  Ministers,  is  suspended.  The 
native  government  can  suggest,  propose,  and  assimilate  sug- 
gestions and  proposals;  but  they  can*  neither  initiate  nor 
control  in  important  affairs  without  the  consent  of  the 
representative  of  Japan.  On  the  other  hand,  the  plans  and 
proposals  of  the  Japanese  Resident- General  must  be  ac- 


434  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

cepted  and  carried  out  under  his  supervision  and  ultimate 
control.1 

The  clause  in  the  new  Convention  which  gave  most  offence 
to  the  official  classes  and  to  the  Yang-bans  generally  in  Korea 
was  that  which  opened  the  door,  per  force  as  it  were,  to  the 
appointment  of  Japanese  to  all  kinds  of  official  positions  in 
the  peninsula.  Although  it  has  been  the  declared  policy  of 
the  present  Resident- General  to  retain  the  Korean  Cabinet 
Ministers,  the  agreement  plainly  makes  it  easily  possible  for 
the  Japanese  Government  to  treat  desirable  appointments  in 
Korea  as  freely  in  the  interests  of  its  own  countrymen  as  is 
possible  for  the  British  Government  in  British  India.  The 
pledge,  however,  to  maintain  the  Imperial  House  in  the 
nominal  possession  of  the  crown,  and  in  the  show  of  authority 
and  dignity  which  go  with  this  possession,  appears  still  to  be 
binding  upon  Japan.  From  this  time  onward,  the  Resident- 
General  becomes  the  uncrowned  king  of  Korea. 

In  spite  of  this,  and  of  all  the  other  features  of  these  re- 
formed relations  which  might  seem  offensive  and  humiliating 
to  Korean  officialdom,  it  is  altogether  likely  that  no  consider- 
able disturbance  would  anywhere  have  taken  place,  had  it  not 
been  for  the  action  of  the  same  disorderly  and  rebellious 
factors  which  occasioned  the  bloodshed  and  confusion  of 
Friday,  July  igth.2  These  were  the  Korean  troops  belonging 

1  For  the  text  of  this  new  Convention,  which  is  remarkable  at  once 
for  its  brevity  and  its  comprehensive  indefiniteness,  the  reader  is  re- 
ferred to  Appendix  C.     In  vew  of  the  claims  that  the  Convention  of 
1905  could  not  have  been  consented  to  by  the  Emperor  because  it  does 
not  bear  his  signature,  or  that  it  did  not  have  the  consent  of  the  Minis- 
ters, because  they  did  not  all  sign  it,  attention  is  called  to  the  fact  that 
the  new  Convention  is  signed  only  by  Marquis  Ito  and  the  Korean 
Prime  Minister. 

2  One  of  the  leaders  of  the  riot  of  July  igth  confessed  that  he  was 
betrayed  into  his  action  by  the  false  report  of  the  Taihan  Mai-il  Shimpo 
(or  Korean  edition  of  the  Korean  Daily  News — Mr.  BethelPs  paper), 
that  the  Emperor  would  be  forced  to  go  to  Japan  to  apologize  for  The 


JULY,  1907,  AND  AFTERWARD  435 

to  the  barracks  at  Seoul.  Let  it  be  distinctly  understood  that 
these  troops  were  not  disciplined  soldiers;  much  less  were 
they  sincere  though  misguided  patriots.  They  were  largely 
untrained  rowdies,  who  cared  chiefly  for  the  pay,  prestige,  and 
idle  life  which  their  employment  as  so-called  palace  guards 
gave  to  them.  At  the  time  of  the  conclusion  of  the  Convention 
an  understanding  probably  existed  between  the  Resident- 
General  and  the  Korean  Ministry,  who  were  themselves 
threatened  with  assassination  and  the  defeat  of  all  their 
work  by  these  same  armed  and  unscrupulous  fellows,  that  the 
Korean  army  should  be  disbanded. 

Late  on  Wednesday  night,  July  3ist,  an  Imperial  rescript 
was  issued  which  ordered  the  disbandment  of  the  Korean 
Army.  The  reason  assigned  was  the  necessity  of  economizing 
all  superfluous  expenses  and  applying  the  funds  thus  saved 
to  material  improvement.  The  existing  army  was  called 
"mercenaries"1  and  said  to  be  "unfit  for  purposes  of  national 
defense."  The  intention  was  announced  to  remodel  the  entire 
military  system  and,  for  the  present  time,  to  attend  chiefly 
to  the  training  of  officers  for  a  national  army  in  the  future. 
A  small  select  force  was  to  be  retained  as  guardians  of  the 
Imperial  House,  and  a  gratuity  in  money  was  to  be  bestowed 
upon  every  one  of  the  disbanded  troops,  according  to  rank. 
All  the  reasons  here  given  for  this  action  were  quite  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  facts;  but  the  most  important  of  all  was, 
of  course,  concealed — namely,  that  the  existing  army  was  the 

Hague  incident.  On  reading  the  Japanese-Korean  Convention,  how- 
ever, he  was  surprised  at  the  moderation  of  Japan,  and  considered  him- 
self a  fool  for  being  deceived  by  the  paper.  This  is  only  one  of  in- 
numerable instances  illustrating  the  truth  that  the  English  editor  of 
this  paper,  and  his  American  coadjutor  have,  of  late,  probably  done 
more  mischief  to  the  Korean  nation  than  any  other  persons  except  the 
Emperor  and  his  small  coterie  of  corrupt  Court  officials. 

1  The  word  thus  translated,  however,  means  "paid"  troops  rather 
than  volunteers. 


436  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

most  serious  of  all  menaces  to  good  order  and  to  peace.  It 
was  sure  to  be  the  tool,  for  purposes  of  assassination,  of  the 
reactionary  party. 

Early  the  following  morning — Thursday,  July  3ist — the 
superior  officers  were  summoned  to  the  residence  of  General 
Hasegawa,  where  General  Yi,  the  Korean  Minister  of  War, 
read  to  them  the  rescript  of  disbandment.  After  conference 
it  was  decided  that  the  non-commissioned  officers  and  men 
of  all  the  battalions  in  Seoul  should  be  marched  without  arms 
to  the  parade  ground  inside  the  East  Gate  of  the  city  and  there 
be  dismissed  after  receiving  their  gratuities  from  the  Em- 
peror. They  were  to  be  present  for  this  purpose  by  ten 
o'clock  of  the  same  morning.  Soon  after  eight  o'clock,  as 
the  Japanese  instructor  of  the  Korean  Army  was  engaged, 
in  its  barracks,  in  drawing  up  the  first  battalion  of  the  First 
Korean  Regiment,  a  great  noise  of  weeping  and  groaning 
was  heard,  and  the  fact  was  made  known  that  its  commander 
had  committed  suicide.  This  was  the  signal  for  the  springing 
up  of  a  great  excitement,  during  which  the  troops  broke 
their  ranks  and  threatened  the  Japanese  officer  with  a  mur- 
derous attack.  The  mutiny  spread  at  once  to  another 
battalion  occupying  adjoining  barracks.  The  mutineers 
then  proceeded  to  break  open  the  magazines  and,  arming 
themselves,  they  rushed  out  of  the  barracks.  They  thereupon 
posted  sentinels  around  the  barracks  where  the  majority  of 
the  forces  still  remained,  who  began  to  fire  aimless  shots 
from  within  upon  the  passers-by.  Meantime  some  of  the 
troops  ran  away.  4 

From  this  centre  the  mutiny  spread,  the  mutineers  rushing 
out  from  the  barracks  to  fire  upon  the  Japanese  officers  who 
were  conducting  to  the  parade  ground  the  other  Korean 
battalions;  but  soon  after  the  appointed  time  of  ten  o'clock  all 
the  Korean  forces  had  reported  there,  with  the  exception  of 
the  two  mutinous  battalions.  The  reduction  of  the  mutinous 


JULY,  1907,  AND  AFTERWARD  437 

soldiers  was  no  easy  matter,  for  the  main  force  was  en- 
trenched behind  stone  walls  near  the  centre  of  the  city,  and 
the  Japanese  forces  attacking  them  were  much  embarrassed 
by  being  fired  upon  by  those  of  the  number  who  had  rushed 
out  from  the  barracks.  But  the  use  of  several  machine  guns 
—two  of  which,  after  being  planted  on  the  wall  of  the  Great 
South  Gate,  were  trained  so  as  to  cover  the  advance  of  the 
Japanese  infantry — and  a  hand-to-hand  fight  with  bayonets/ 
and  hand-grenades  at  the  barracks  soon  reduced  the  mutinous  \ 
Korean  soldiers.  By  10.50  A.  M.  the  barracks  were  completely  /! 
in  the  hands  of  the  Japanese.  The  casualties  as  estimated  in 
the  official  report  o:  General  Hasegawa  were,  on  the  side  of 
the  Japanese,  3  killed,  and  2  officers  and  20  men  wounded; 
on  the  side  of  the  Koreans,  n  officers  and  57  men  killed,  and 
100  officers  and  men  wounded.  Korean  officers  and  men,  to 
the  number  of  516,  were  taken  prisoners.  The  best  possible 
care  was  given  to  the  wounded,  both  Koreans  and  Japanese, 
in  the  government  and  missionary  hospitals — Marquis  Ito, 
and  his  suite,  and  the  prominent  Japanese  ladies  belonging 
to  the  Red  Cross  Society  and  Patriotic  Associations,  visiting 
them  in  the  hospitals  and  making  generous  contributions  to 
their  assistance  and  comfort. 

In  one  respect,  however,  the  Japanese  military  authorities 
made  a  mistake  which  their  hostile  critics  were  not  slow  to 
seize  upon  and  exaggerate  to  the  discredit  of  their  management 
generally.     It    appears    that    the    services    of   some    thirty 
civilians  were  volunteered  and  accepted  to  assist  the  police 
and  soldiers  in  searching  for  the  fugitive  mutineers.     Much 
bad  blood  had  been  stirred  up  between  the  two  nationalities   , 
by  the  previous  unprovoked  attack  and  murder  of  the  Japan-   \ 
ese  police  at  the  hands  of  mutinous  Korean  soldiers.     In  the    \ 
spirit  of  vengeance,  therefore,  there  was  no  doubt  considerable 
return  of  excesses  on  the  part  of  irresponsible  individuals     / 
among  the  Japanese  civilian  volunteers.     Otherwise,  the  very  / 


438  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

trying  situation  in  which  these  revolts  of  the  Korean  military 
forces  placed  the  Japanese  Government  in  Seoul  was  appar- 
ently met  with  commendable  moderation  and  skill. 

One  of  the  most  noteworthy  features  of  this  entire  disturb- 
ance was  the  complete  aloofness  of  the  people  of  Seoul  from 
any  hostile  demonstration  toward  the  Japanese.  Within 
forty-eight  hours  of  this  battle  between  their  own  disbanded 
troops  and  the  foreign  military,  the  city  resumed  its  normal 
appearance ;  the  people  went  about  their  accustomed  occupa- 
tions; the  full  tide  of  business  began  to  flow  as  usual.  Such 
behavior  as  this,  under  anything  resembling  similar  condi- 
tions, has  seldom  or  never  before  characterized  the  populace 
of  Seoul.  It  must  be  interpreted  as  a  hopeful  sign  for  the 
future  good  order  and  prosperity  of  the  city. 

The  disbandment  of  the  Korean  provincial  garrisons  for  the 
most  part  proceeded  quietly.  But  the  disbanded  soldiers  in 
considerable  numbers  allied  themselves  with  other  elements 
of  riot  and  unrest,  and  local  disturbances  of  a  more  or  less 
serious  character  continued  to  break  out  and  demand  sup- 
pression by  the  police  and  the  military,  here  and  there  in 
various  parts  of  the  peninsula.  This  state  of  things  continued 
for  weeks  and,  in  a  diminishing  degree,  for  months  following 
the  Convention  of  July,  1907.  But  the  detailed  account  of 
these  transactions  does  not  concern  our  narrative.  Under 
the  circumstances  they  may  be  considered  as  temporary  but 
unavoidable  incidents  in  the  practical  solution  of  this  complex 
and  difficult  historical  problem  of  the  relations  to  be  estab- 
lished between  Japan  and  Korea.  Among  the  mutinous 
and  riotous  outbreaks  that  at  Kang-wha  Island — the  scene 
in  the  past  of  so  many  acute  conflicts  between  Korea  and 
/foreign  nations — was  typical  and  also,  perhaps,  one  of  the 
/  most  important.  When  the  Japanese  captain  in  command 
of  a  detachment  of  Japanese  troops,  and  accompanied  by  the 
Korean  commander  of  the  native  battalion  at  Suwon,  arrived 


JULY,   1907,    AND  AFTERWARD  439 

to  disband  the  Korean  garrison  and  to  distribute  the  gratuities, 
they  were  met  by  a  shower  of  bullets  poured  upon  them  while 
landing  on  the  island.  The  Korean  mutineers  retreated  to 
the  city  of  Kang-wha,  where  they  were  joined  by  some  300 
rioters.  Under  cover  of  the  city  walls  they  offered  a  some- 
what stubborn  resistance  to  the  attacking  forces,  but  were 
finally  dislodged  and  fled  in  various  directions.  It  was 
afterward  learned  that  the  Korean  troops,  in  defiance  of  their 
own  officers,  had  broken  open  the  military  magazine,  mur- 
dered the  magistrate  of  the  island  and  several  policemen,  and 
had  then  forced  some  hundreds  of  the  citizens,  by  threats  of 
death,  to  join  with  them  in  fighting  the  Japanese.  When 
the  real  fighting  began,  they  ran  away. 

The  procedure   at   Kang-wha,   we   repeat,   was   typical. 
It  is  a  specimen  of  the  Korean  ancestral  way  of  resisting 
every  form  of  government.     The  method  of  these  " patriotic" 
uprisings  was  everywhere  similar.     Several   score   or  hun- 
dreds of  Koreans,  stirred  and  led  by  the  disbanded  soldiers, 
came  together,  killed  the  Japanese — old  men,  women,  and. 
children — as  well  as  the  police  officials,  shot  some  of  their/ 
own  countrymen,  chiefly  those  suspected  of  not  being  sufrV- 
ciently  violent  in  their  anti- Japanese  sentiments,  burned  and 
plundered  indiscriminately;    and  then  when  the  Japanese 
military  or  police  approached  in  any  formidable  numbers 
they  ran  away  and  hid  themselves.     In  view  of  these  dis- 
turbed conditions  and  the  alleged  connection  of  some  of  their 
converts  with  these  uprisings,  the  missionaries  were  anew 
placed  in  a  difficult  and  delicate  situation.     This,  however, \ 
like  the  greater  number  of  similar  previous  trials,  was  not  j  Y' 
primarily  due  to  the  Japanese  Protectorate,  but  to  the  Koreans/  ' 
themselves — Emperor,  officials,  and  common  people.     There 
were  numerous  plausible  charges  made  against  the  mission- 
aries and  their  converts  of  harboring  Korean  rioters  and  even 
of  lending  countenance  to  the  rioting  under  the  pretence  of 


440  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

patriotism.  There  can  be  little  doubt,  however,  that  these 
charges  were,  almost  if  not  quite  without  exception,  either 
misunderstandings  or  malicious  falsehoods.  The  misunder- 
standings were,  in  view  of  the  past,  not  altogether  unreason- 
able; the  falsehoods  were  such  as  are  encountered  by  the 
religious  teacher  wherever  he  seems  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
unlimited  greed  or  unchecked  violence.  On  the  whole,  as 
has  already  been  said,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  mission- 
aries and  their  Korean  converts  exerted  a  notable  influence 
in  favor  of  quietness,  peace,  and  the  observance  of  law  and 
order.  That  the  native  Christians  were  alarmed,  and  stood 
in  fear  both  of  the  Japanese  and  of  their  own  countrymen, 
was  a  thing  to  be  expected.  But  probably  their  experience 
in  this  time  of  trial  with  the  behavior  of  these  foreign  police- 
men and  soldiers  tended  to  diminish  the  native  dislike  and 
dread  of  the  Japanese  Protectorate. 

At  once  the  strength  of  the  reform  party  among  the  Koreans 
themselves  began  to  make  itself  felt  under  the  terms  of  the 
new  Convention.  On  the  date  of  August  i5th  an  Imperial 
rescript  forbade  boys  under  seventeen  years  of  age,  and 
girls  under  fifteen,  from  contracting  marriages.  The  same 
day  the  new  Emperor  proclaimed  the  purpose,  which  he 
afterward  carried  out,  to  cut  his  hair  on  the  occasion  of  his 
formal  accession  to  the  throne  and  to  dress  himself  in 
military  uniform  from  that  time.  The  ex-Emperor,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  he  had  formerly  been  glad  to  .see  his  people 
excited  to  rebellion  and  murder  by  a  similar  proposal  for 
changing  the  fashion  of  the  Korean  gentleman's  head-dress, 
and  in  spite  also  of  the  fact  that  weeping  eunuchs  and  ancient 
Court  officials  besought  him  not  to  proceed  to  such  lengths 
in  breaking  with  the  past,  actually  did  subsequently  join  in 
the  new  custom.  And  when  the  deed  was  done,  His  ex- 
Majesty  was  pleased  to  command  the  objectors  to  do  likewise, 
and  to  say  for  himself  that  the  change  was  really  not  half  so 


JULY,  1907,  AND   AFTERWARD  441 

bad  as  he  had  thought  it  would  be.  Now,  although  these  are 
not  trivial  matters  in  Korea,  or  mere  straws  which  show  the 
way  of  the  blowing  of  the  wind,  a  more  important  result  of 
the  new  Convention  was  this:  after  due  deliberation,  the 
Cabinet  Ministers  decided  that  the  young  son  of  Lady  Om 
who  had  already  been  proclaimed  Crown  Prince,  must  in 
future  really  attend  to  his  lessons  and  become  educated  in 
some  manner  befitting  his  future  expectations.  Although  it 
was  doubted  whether  His  Imperial  Highness  was  not  still  too 
young  to  go  to  Japan  for  study,  he  was  required  to  begin  the 
study  of  the  Japanese  language  in  addition  to  English  and 
Chinese.  Left  to  the  influence  of  the  eunuchs  and  palace 
women,  he  was  sure  to  be  debauched  and  ruined.  Educated, 
he  may  easily  make  the  best  sovereign  Korea  has  enjoyed  for 
centuries. 

At  once  also  the  Resident-General  began  to  mature  the 
larger  plans  for  carrying  out  his  purposes  toward  Korea 
which  the  new  Convention  made  possible.     For  now  upon 
the  Japanese  Government  in  Korea  rested  the  responsibility, 
not  only  for  the  satisfactory  and  safe  management  of  the 
country's  foreign  relations,  but  directly  and  more  heavily 
than  ever  before,  the  readjustment,  reform,  and  successful 
management  of  all  its  internal  affairs.     To  report  to  the 
Emperor  of  Japan,  and  to  consult  with  His  Majesty  and  with 
the  Japanese  Government  about  the  form  and  successful 
execution  of  the  measures  made  necessary  or  desirable  by  the 
new  Convention,  Marquis  Ito  paid  a  visit  to  his  native  land. 
Leaving  Seoul  by  special  train  for  Chemulpo  on  the  afternoon 
of  August  nth,  His  Excellency  arrived  at  Oiso  five  days  later;  \ 
and  on  the  Tuesday  following,   August   2oth,  received  at    \ 
Shimbashi  Station  in  Tokyo  a  reception,  both  by  the  official 
class  and  by  the  crowds,  such  as  has  seldom  or  never  been     / 
accorded  to  a  civilian  before  in  the  history  of  Japan.     The  / 
reception  given  to  him  by  the  Emperor,  who  had  sent  air 


442  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

Imperial  Chamberlain  to  intimate  his  desire  to  consult  with 
the  Resident-General,  was  scarcely  less  unique. 

In  the  many  public  addresses  which  followed,  at  the  various 
banquets  and  receptions  given  to  the  Marquis,  he  took  pains 
to  make  it  perfectly  clear  that  his  benevolent  intentions 
toward  the  Korean  people  had  in  no  respect  suffered  a  change. 
Of  himself  he  declared  that  he  was  neither  elated  in  spirit  over 
the  success  of  the  new  treaty,  nor  depressed  in  spirit  before 
the  new  difficulties  which  must  be  encountered.  He  wished 
his  countrymen  to  remember  that  the  Korean  problem  was 
not  political,  not  one  of  the  successful  exploitation  of  a 
weaker  nation  by  a  stronger,  but  a  question  of  that  policy 
which  should  be  fpr  the  highest  interests  and  best  welfare  of 
both  nations.  The  need  of  the  hour  was  the  need  of  men — 
both  Japanese  and  Koreans — who  could  stand  in  the  places 
of  responsibility  and  influence,  and  discharge  their  duties 
faithfully,  honestly,  unselfishly.  The  work  which  he  had 
undertaken  to  do  in  Korea  was  only  a  beginning;  and  on 
account  of  advancing  age  he  must  soon  let  it  go  from  his  hand. 
At  present,  however,  he  was  in  harness  and  must  remain  so. 
When  the  time  came  for  him  to  resign,  he  hoped  sincerely 
that  some  able  and  wise  successor  in  the  office — now  so  in- 
creasingly responsible — of  Japanese  Resident- General  in 
Korea  might  somewhere  be  found. 

This  historical  and  critical  sketch  of  the  relations  between 
the  two  nations  of  Japan  and  Korea  fitly  closes  with  the  visit 
of  Marquis — now  Prince — Ito  to  Tokyo  in  August  of  1907. 
The  results  to  follow  from  the  plans  which  were  then  matured 
for  the  administration  of  the  offices  of  the  Residency-General 
and  for  the  more  ultimate  solution  of  the  delicate  and  com- 
plex problem  of  bringing  about  a  state  of  affairs  which  shall 
at  the  same  time  redeem  Korea  and  deliver  Japan  from  the" 
constant  menace  which  the  peninsula  has  hitherto  been — 
and  not  only  this,  but  shall  bind  the  two  nations  together 


JULY,    1907,   AND  AFTERWARD  443 

in  a  common  prosperity  under  terms  of  friendship  and 
good-will,  are  destined  to  form  important  items  in  the  future 
history  of  the  Far  East.  It  remains  only  to  add  that  no  one 
who  could  have  heard  the  firm  and  feeling-full  declaration 
made  to  the  writer  by  His  Excellency  when  the  latter  was 
on  the  eve  of  returning  to  Seoul,  would  question  the  wisdom, 
honesty,  or  benevolence  of  the  Japanese  Resident-General  in 
Korea.  As  fast  and  far  as  he  can  have  his  way,  this  long- 
time misgoverned  and  wretched  nation  will  be  reformed  and 
uplifted  to  an  unwonted  economical  and  political  prosperity. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM 

THE  role  of  the  prophet  in  his  predictive  function,  and 
with  reference  to  the  destiny  of  nations,  is  always  a  delicate 
and  dangerous  part  to  play.  The  danger  is  particularly 
great  when  the  complex  and  largely  unfamiliar  ideas  and 
emotions  of  Oriental  peoples  constitute  the  controlling  factors 
in  the  situation;  it  is  made  still  greater  at  the  present  time, 
as  regards  the  future  of  the  Far  East,  by  the  increasing 
admixture  of  foreign  and  Western  influences.  Above  all, 
however,  is  the  situation  complicated  by  the  unsettled  and 
totally  uncertain  condition  of  China.  Here  are  countless 
millions  of  an  industrious,  patient,  and  thrifty,  but  almost 
incredibly  ignorant  and  superstitious,  population;  corrupt 
and  intriguing  official  classes  and  an  essentially  foreign 
Court;  indefinitely  great  resources  of  soil  and  mines,  and  an 
almost  limitless  capacity  for  foreign  trade,  which  makes  it 
the  coveted  territory  for  exploiting  schemes  by  both  European 
and  Asiatic  nations.  Into  this  hitherto  relatively  inert  mass 
the  ferment  of  new  conceptions  of  civilization  and  of  life,  of 
the  things  which  are  worth  the  having  and  which  may  be  had, 
if  men  will  struggle  and  fight  for  them,  is  now  being  every- 
where introduced.  The  restlessness  of  feeling,  with  its 
stimulus  to  violence,  which  has  formerly  resulted  for  the  most 
part  in  local  uprisings  against  excessive  squeezing  from  their 
own  officials,  or  against  too  obvious  interference  with  their 
ancient  institutions  and  present  material  interests  by  for- 
eigners, is  now  taking  the  form  of  a  purpose  which  may 

444 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM        445 

quickly  change,  and  by  bloody  revolution  if  necessary,  the 
character  of  the  Chinese  Government  and  even  the  nature  of 
Chinese  characteristic  civilization.  What  will  be  the  effect 
of  all  this  upon  the  entire  Far  East,  is  a  question  which  would 
require  of  any  student  of  history  a  bold,  an  audacious  front 
to  answer  in  a  confident  tone.1 

In  this  uncertainty  as  to  the  future  of  the  Far  East,  Korea 
shares,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  a  large  extent.  For,  even  now 
that  certain  important  factors  in  the  problem  of  the  Japanese 
Protectorate  over  Korea  seem  to  be  relatively  stable,  the 
problem  as  a  whole  remains  exceedingly  difficult  and  com- 
plex. How  will  Japan  succeed  in  solving  this  problem? 
Will  it  be  by  the  way  of  developing  the  material  resources  of 
the  land,  on  the  whole  peacefully,  and  chiefly  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Koreans  themselves;  of  reforming  the  economic,  ad- 
ministrative, and  judicial  condition  of  the  common  people; 
and  of  making  a  foreign  rule  to  be  esteemed  a  blessing  rather 
than  an  odious  imposition?  Or,  will  it  be  by  the  way  of 
reducing  Korea  to  a  condition  of  virtual  vassalage,  and  of 
making  its  people  a  dissatisfied  nation,  ever  ready  for  revolt 
and  only  kept  down  from  successful  revolt  by  the  strong  arm 
of  a  foreign  police  and  a  foreign  military  force  ?  Will  Japan 
really  succeed  in  solving  this  problem  at  all  ?  All  suggestions 
in  answer  to  these  and  similar  questions  are  of  value  only  as 
they  are  rendered  more  or  less  probable  in  view  of  such  facts 

1  How  dangerous  is  prophecy  touching  the  future  of  the  Far  East  is 
well  illustrated  by  the  following  passage  quoted  from  Mr.  Whigham's 
generally  calm  and  fair  book  on  Manchuria  and  Korea,  p.  49.  Speak- 
ing of  the  mistake  which  Japan  made  in  not  preventing  Russia  from 
building  the  Manchurian  Railway,  Mr.  Whigham  says:  "On  the  other 
hand,  one  is  more  and  more  convinced  that  what  used  to  be  talked 
about  a  short  time  ago  as  the  inevitable  war  between  Russia  and  Japan 
is  destined  to  end  in  smoke,  since  the  Japanese  have  already  lost  their 
great  opportunity."  This  was  written  as  of  July,  1901.  Less  than  three 
years  later  "the  inevitable  war"  began  in  the  "smoke"  of  battle,  and 
ended  with  Japan  in  possession  of  this  same  Manchurian  Railway. 


446  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

as  those  to  which  attention  has  been  directed  in  the  preced- 
ing chapters  of  this  book. 

The  future  of  Korea  and  of  the  Japanese  Protectorate  over 
Korea  will  inevitably  depend  upon  the  action  and  reaction 
of  three  classes  of  factors.  These  are  the  attitude  and  be- 
havior of  other  foreign  nations;  the  native  capacity  for  self- 
government  and  the  actual  conduct  of  the  Koreans  them- 
selves; and  the  policy  of  Japan,  not  as  a  theory  or  an  experi- 
ment merely,  but  as  embodied  in  industries,  laws,  institutions 
and  other  forms  of  practical  effect. 

In  all  past  time,  but  especially  during  the  last  half-century, 
the  relations  of  Japan  and  Korea  have  been  chiefly  determined 
by  the  attitude  and  behavior  of  other  foreign  nations,  both 
toward  and  within  the  Korean  peninsula.  It  was  the  desire 
of  Japan  to  get  at  China  through  Korea,  and  the  determination 
of  the  Chinese  Government  to  resist  and  thwart  this  desire, 
and  to  retain  for  itself  the  supremacy  in  the  control  of  Korean 
affairs,  which  brought  about  the  invasion  of  Hideyoshi,  with 
its  persistent  train  of  consequences  lasting  well  down  into 
modern  times.  Until  the  end  of  the  Chino- Japan  war,  and 
especially  in  the  events  of  1882  and  1884,  as  well  as  in  those 
events  which  immediately  preceded  the  war,  it  was  what 
China  did  or  proposed  to  do,  which  formed  the  principal 
influence  to  determine  the  relations  of  Japan  and  Korea. 
After  this  war  had  definitively  and  finally  delivered  the 
peninsula  from  all  Chinese  claims  to  suzerainty,  or  even  to 
predominating  influence,  it  was  chiefly  the  attitude  and 
actions  of  Russia  which  decided  the  more  active  relations  of 
Japanese  to  the  Korean  Government.  France  and  Germany 
at  the  close  of  the  war  with  China,  and  France  during  the 
period  just  preceding  the  war  with  Russia,  exercised  consider- 
able influence — of  a  less  obvious  and  direct  character,  how- 
ever— upon  the  relations  of  these  two  governments.  During 
the  last  three  or  four  years  which  cover  the  period  that  began 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM        447 

toward  the  close  of  the  Russo-Japanese  compaignings,  Great 
Britain  and  the  United  States  have  powerfully,  but  for  the 
most  part  indirectly,  affected  the  newer  relations  that  have 
been  in  the  process  of  forming  between  Japan  and  Korea. 
The  Government  of  Great  Britain  has  been  the  fair  ally  and 
sensible  counsellor  of  the  Japanese  Government;  the  United 
States,  while  maintaining  an  official  attitude  distinctly  favor- 
able to  giving  the  Residency- General  a  "free  hand"  for  his 
plans  to  accomplish  reforms  in  Korea,  has  been,  by  complicity 
of  some  of  its  private  citizens  with  a  false  and  corrupt  Emperor, 
a  no  inconsiderable  source  of  embarrassment.  The  same 
thing  would  have  to  be  said  of  some  of  the  British  residents 
in  Korea. 

Recent  Treaties  and  Conventions  with  Great  Britain, 
France,  and  Russia,  have  now,  however,  made  it  as  certain  as 
anything  in  the  political  future  of  human  affairs  can  well  be, 
that  none  of  these  powerful  nations  will  for  some  years  to 
come  interfere  in  the  policy  or  administration  of  the  Japanese 
Protectorate  in  Korea.  So  far  as  their  action  is  concerned, 
Japan  has  only  to  maintain  her  pledges  of  "equal  oppor- 
tunity," the  "open  door,"  and  "hands-off"  from  China  for 
purposes  of  plundering  its  territory,  and  she  may  now  try 
without  foreign  interference  her  plans  for  the  improvement  of 
her  relations  with  this  hitherto  most  troublesome  neighbor. 
Indeed,  the  way  in  which  the  Convention  of  July,  1907,  with 
its  increase  of  legal  rights  to  control  the  internal  administra- 
tion and  reshape  the  entire  code  and  economic  and  social 
system  of  the  Korean  peninsula,  has  been  received  by  the 
Powers  generally,  shows  that  no  formidable  objection  from 
without  would  be  raised  if  Japan  should  substitute  out-and- 
out  annexation  for  the  now-existing  Protectorate.  The  four 
great  nations  whose  territorial  possessions  give  them  a  su- 
preme interest  in  the  Far  East,  have  already  formally  ac- 
cepted the  existing  situation ;  there  is  less  and  less  likelihood 


448  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

of  meddling,  as  authorized  by  other  European  or  American 
nations,  on  the  part  of  their  diplomatic  representatives. 

Furthermore,  in  Korea  itself,  those  squabbles  with  foreign- 
ers which  have  arisen  out  of  conflicting  promoting  schemes 
and  claims  to  concessions,  since  order  is  being  rapidly  brought 
out  of  the  confusion  they  have  occasioned,  are  likely  to  cut 
less  of  a  figure  in  the  future.  The  anti- Japanese  missionaries 
and  other  foreign  residents  in  Seoul  are  being  either  won  over, 
or  their  complaints  silenced,  by  the  policy  of  the  Residency- 
General.  If  the  criticisms  of  the  dealings  of  Japan  with  Korea 
were  much  more  just  and  severe,  they  would  not  be  likely  to 
involve  international  complications  of  any  serious  magnitude. 
Only  China  remains — huge,  mysterious,  incalculable  both  for 
good  and  for  evil,  a  vast  overhanging  cloud,  with  here  and 
there  a  flash  of  lightning  or  streak  of  sunlight  shining  through. 
But  for  some  time  to  come  it  is  altogether  unlikely  that  the 
Celestial  Empire  will  be  able,  however  willing,  to  re-establish 
any  claims  to  a  dominating  influence,  much  less  to  a  restored 
suzerainty,  in  the  Korean  peninsula.  This  first  class  of 
factors*  which  have  been  so  influential  and  even  determinative 
in  the  past,  may  therefore  not  improperly  be  eliminated  in 
making  up  one's  calculations  as  to  the  probable  future.  In 
other  words,  the  issue  will  now  be  determined  by  the  behavior 
toward  each  other  of  the  two  peoples  immediately  concerned. 
Japanese  and  Koreans  will  now  be  allowed  to  work  out  the 
problem  of  the  relations — for  the  weal  or  for  the  woe  of  both 
peoples — to  exist  and  prove  effective  between  Japan  and 
Korea. 

What  shall  be  said,  however,  as  to  the  part  which  the 
Korean  Government  and  the  Korean  people  themselves  are 
likely  to  contribute  toward  solving  the  difficult  and  intricate 
problem  of  the  future  relations  of  the  two  nations?  The 
basis  for  a  plausible  answer  to  this  question  must  be  found 
in  an  estimate  of  the  material  resources  of  Korea  and  in  a 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM        449 

calculation  as  to  the  share  which  the  Koreans  are  destined 
to  have  in  the  improved  conditions  brought  about  by  the 
development  of  these  resources.  It  has  already  been  shown 
that  the  soil  of  the  peninsula,  under  improved  methods  of 
cultivation,  can  easily  be  made  to  support  double  the  existing 
population.  Reforestation  and  proper  treatment  of  the 
forests  remaining  can  easily  supply  this  increased  population 
with  fuel  and  with  timber.  The  introduction  of  new  crops, 
and  the  increase  of  the  products  of  cotton  and  silk,  the 
fostering  of  such  forms  of  manufacture  as  are  fitted  to  the 
country,  and  the  development  of  the  mines,  can  just  as  easily 
be  made  to  place  this  two-folded  population  in  circumstances 
of  greatly  increased  comfort  and  prosperity.  And  with  it  all 
will  go,  of  course,  the  building  up  of  foreign  trade  and  the 
securing  of  all  the  benefits  that  follow  in  its  train.  But 
who  will  actually  possess  the  fruits  of  this  development; 
will  it  be  the  Koreans  themselves,  or  the  Japanese  immi- 
grants ? 

So  far  as  the  answer  to  this  question  depends  upon  the 
enactment  and  the  enforcement  of  a  just  legal  code — the 
right  to  an  equal  chance,  and  security  of  this  right  if  only  the 
man  is  able  to  seize  and  improve  it — the  Japanese  Residency- 
General  is  solemnly  pledged  and  actually  committed.  But 
laws,  courts,  educational  institutions,  and  banking  facilities 
cannot  do  everything.  After  all  these,  and  in  the  midst  of 
all  these,  there  is  the  man — his  physical  and  mental  character- 
istics, his  moral  and  spiritual  impulses.  Overwhelming 
Japanese  immigration  is  perhaps,  then,  greatly  to  be  dreaded 
by  the  Koreans,  even  when  the  former  can  no  longer  take 
from  the  latter  by  fraud  or  by  violence.  The  dread,  however, 
that  the  Koreans  will  be  supplanted  by  the  Japanese  would 
seem  by  no  means  to  be  wholly  warranted  in  view  of  existing 
facts.  The  actual  native  population  of  the  Korean  peninsula 
is  difficult  to  ascertain ;  but  the  latest  census,  taken  in  the 


450  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

spring  of  1907,  shows  that  it  was  probably  greatly  over- 
estimated by  the  previous  statistics.  This  census  gave  the 
numbers  as  9,638,578  people  inhabiting  2,322,457  houses. 
A  census  of  the  Japanese  population  in  Korea,  January  31, 
1907,  returned  the  figures  of  81,657  m  ^  °*  which  31,754 
were  females.  As  compared  with  the  returns  for  March  31, 

1906,  this  census  showed  an  increase  of  about  20,000  in  the 
non-official  Japanese  population  (a  calculation  not  differing 
greatly  from  that  based  upon  the  returns  of  the  steamship 
agency  at  Fusan,  see  p.  143  f.).    Making  allowance  for  those 
immigrants  who  failed  to  register,  we  may  calculate  that  not 
far  from  100,000  Japanese,  exclusive  of  the  army  and  the 
civil  officials,  were  resident  in  Korea  during  the  summer  of 

1907.  The  great  majority  of  these  immigrants  were  traders, 
artisans,  and  common  laborers;   but  an  increasing  number 
of  Japanese  farmers  were  settling,  especially  in  the  fertile 
valleys  of  Kyung-sang-do  and  Cholla-do.     Of  these  traders, 
artisans,  and  common  laborers,  many  are  engaged  in  building 
Japanese  houses  and  in  construction  work  on  the  Japanese 
railways;    by  no  means  all  such  immigrants  are  likely  to 
become  permanent  residents  in  Korea.     With  the  farmers 
the  case  is  not  the  same. 

Is  the  annual  rate  of  Japanese  immigration  into  Korea 
likely  to  increase  greatly  in  the  future?  No  one  can  tell 
positively;  but  the  negative  answer  seems  much  the  more 
likely.  The  day  of  temptation  to  the  mere  adventurer  is 
largely  gone  by;  the  Koreans  themselves  are  likely  to  become 
acquainted  with  the  way  of  doing  things  as  the  Japanese 
demand  requires  they  should  be  done,  and  then  many  of 
these  foreign  traders,  artisans,  and  laborers  will  have  their 
places  taken  by  Koreans.  Formosa,  Manchuria,  and  Hok- 
kaido are  rivals  of  Korea  for  the  Japanese  agriculturists  and 
other  kinds  of  permanent  settlers;  South  America  and  other 
countries  offer  greater  inducements  to  the  emigration  com- 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM        451 

panies.  Moreover,  at  about  the  same  time  that  the  results 
of  these  censuses  were  published,  a  local  paper  in  Seoul 
published  the  birth  and  death  statistics  of  the  Japanese 
colony  there.  These  statistics  showed  that  during  the  pre- 
vious year  there  had  been  an  excess  of  deaths  over  births 
among  the  Japanese  in  Seoul.  Of  births  there  were  312 — 
187  male  and  125  female,  while  the  deaths  amounted  to  a 
total  of  464 — 308  male  and  156  female.  And  yet  there  are 
few  old  people,  and  almost  none  who  came  as  invalids,  in 
this  foreign  population. 

Let  it  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  annual  net  increase 
of  Japanese  population  in  Korea  amounts  to  20,000  for  the 
next  fifty  years.  There  will  then  be  only  somewhat  more  than 
one  million  of  this  now  foreign  population.  But  meantime 
the  Korean  peninsula  will  have  become  quite  capable  of 
supporting  double  its  present  native  population.  Besides 
this,  there  are  those — to  the  opinion  of  whom  the  present 
writer  is  strongly  inclined — who  feel  confident  that  fifty 
years  from  now  the  distinction  between  Korean  and  Japanese, 
among  the  common  people,  will  be  very  nearly,  if  not  quite 
completely,  wiped  out.  And,  indeed,  the  two  nations  are  of 
essentially  the  same  derivation,  so  far  as  their  dominant 
strains  of  ancestral  blood  are  concerned ;  and  great  as  are  the 
present  differences  between  the  Japanese  in  Japan  and  the 
Koreans  in  Korea,  there  is  no  real  reason  why  both  Japanese 
and  Koreans  should  not  become  essentially  one  people  in 
Korea. 

There  is  then,  it  would  seem,  no  essential  and  permanent 
reason  of  a  material  sort  why  Korea  should  not  remain  Korean 
in  its  principal  features,  if  the  next  half-century  shows  the 
expected  results  in  its  material  development.  We  have  seen 
that  the  present  Residency- General  is  committed  to  the  policy 
of  developing  the  land  in  the  behalf  of  its  own  inhabitants, 
while  according  all  just  and  natural  rights,  and  all  reasonable 


452  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

encouragement,  to  foreign  immigration  and  to  foreign  capital. 
Again,  however,  the  same  decisive  but  as  yet  unanswered 
questions  return:  Can  the  Court  be  purified?  Can  an 
honest  and  efficient  Korean  official  class  be  secured,  trained, 
and  supported  by  the  nation?  Can  that  middle  class — 
which  is  in  all  modern  nations  the  source  of  the  controlling 
economic  and  moral  factors — be  constituted  out  of  the  body 
of  the  Korean  people  ?  And,  finally,  can  the  great  multitude, 
the  Korean  populace,  be  made  more  intelligent,  law-abiding, 
and  morally  sound? 

As  to  the  purification  of  the  Court  at  Seoul  under  the  ex- 
Emperor,  and  so  far  as  his  influence  could  be  extended — such 
a  thing  was  found  impossible  by  the  Resident- General. 
Warnings,  advice,  experience  of  evil  results — all  were  of  no 
avail.  This  weak  and  corrupt  nature  would  not  free  itself 
from  its  environment  of  sorceresses,  eunuchs,  soothsayers, 
and  selfish  or  desperate,  corrupt,  and  low-lived  native  and 
foreign  advisers ;  and  without  the  conversion  of  the  Emperor, 
under  the  former  conditions,  the  Court  could  not  be  made 
more  intelligent,  honest  and  patriotic.  So  long  and  so  far  as 
the  ex-Emperor  can  exercise  his  parental  influence  upon  the 
present  Emperor  in  national  affairs,  the  part  which  the  Court 
plays  in  the  redemption  of  the  nation  will  be  comparatively 
small.  But  this  influence  is  now  broken;  and  the  measures 
which  are  being  taken  wholly  to  nullify  it  can  scarcely  fail 
to  succeed.  If  it  becomes  necessary,  His  ex-Majesty  can  be 
given  a  residence  remote  from  Seoul.  The  Convention  of 
July,  1907,  gives  to  the  Japanese  Resident- General  a  hitherto 
impossible  control  over  the  entourage  of  the  Emperor.  It  is 
therefore  altogether  unlikely  that  any  future  ruler  of  Korea, 
even  if  he  should  wish  to  follow  this  bad  example,  this  most 
disastrous  precedent,  will  be  able  to  rival  for  mischief  his 
predecessors,  by  way  of  encouraging  fraud,  violence,  and  sedi- 
tion at  home,  and  foreign  misunderstandings  and  interferences 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM        453 

through  the  help  of  unwise  or  unscrupulous  "foreign  friends." 
Moreover,  the  present  Emperor,  so  far  as  can  be  judged  by 
the  brief  experience  under  his  rule,  is  either  not  disposed,  or 
not  able,  to  continue  the  evil  practices  of  his  Imperial  an- 
cestor. The  proposals  for  reform  brought  before  His  Korean 
Majesty  seem  now  to  meet  with  neither  open  nor  secret 
opposition.  Best  of  all,  the  palace  horde  of  evil  men  and 
women  is  being  reduced  from  within,  and  excluded  from 
without;  and  this,  in  the  absence  of  complaints  and  petitions 
for  pity,  sent  over  the  civilized  world,  from  the  royal  "pris- 
oner" under  a  blood-thirsty  Japanese  guard!  Thus  there  is 
solid  ground  on  which  to  build  hopes  of  a  far  less  corrupt, 
a  much  more  intelligent  and  honest,  Korean  Court. 

That  honorable  and  brave  leaders — generals,  civil  rulers, 
magistrates,  and  judges — can  come  out  of  Korean  ancestry, 
there  is  the  evidence  of  history  to  show.  True,  the  number 
of  such  leaders,  through  all  the  past  centuries  of  Korea's 
sad  and  disgraceful  career,  has  been  relatively  small.  But,  as 
has  been  repeatedly  pointed  out,  this  fact  has  been  largely 
due  to  the  corrupt  official  system,  and  the  ever-present  cor- 
rupting influence,  which  has  come  from  across  the  Yellow 
Sea — that  is,  from  China.  The  Cabinet  officials  who  had  to 
meet  the  severely  trying  emergency  which  ended  with  the 
abdication  of  the  Emperor,  a  new  Convention  with  Japan, 
and  the  pacification  of  a  people  much  given  over  to  local 
disorders  and  to  the  spreading  of  the  spirit  of  riot  and 
sedition,  on  the  whole  acquitted  themselves  well.  It  is, 
indeed,  difficult  to  see  how  they  could  have  done  better 
for  the  country  under  the  existing  circumstances.  That 
timber  can  be  grown  in  Korea,  out  of  which  may  be  hewn 
in  the  future  enough  material  for  a  sound  and  fair  of- 
ficial edifice,  there  is,  we  think,  no  good  reason  to  doubt. 
Under  the  recent  Convention  the  responsibility  for  framing 
laws,  policing  the  country,  securing  order,  appointing  a  just 


454  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

and  intelligent  magistracy,  as  well  as  developing  schools 
and  industries  and  arts,  rests  primarily  upon  the  Japanese 
Government.  If  moderation  and  wisdom  can  be  secured 
here,  a  sufficient  force  of  native  official  helpers  and  partners 
in  all  the  benevolent  projects  of  the  Marquis  Ito  can  probably 
in  due  time  also  be  secured.  In  order,  however,  that  Japan- 
ese and  Korean  officials  should  co-operate  heartily,  and  should 
live  and  work  together  in  peace,  it  is  necessary  that  the  under- 
lying principle  of  their  co-operation  should  be  not  selfish,  but 
controlled  by  devotion  to  duty  and  by  an  intelligent  and 
sincere  desire  to  secure  the  welfare  of  both  nations.  Only 
such  high  motives  can  unite  men  of  different  nationalities,  or 
even  of  the  same  nation,  in  works  of  economic  reform  and 
moral  improvement.  This  is  only  to  say  that  in  Korea,  as 
everywhere  else  in  the  ancient  and  the  modern  world  alike, 
the  real  and  lasting  success  of  the  government  must  depend 
upon  its  intelligence  and  its  righteousness.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  the  capacity  for  both  these  essential  classes  of  qualifica- 
tions for  self-government  is  in  the  Korean  blood,  if  only  it 
can  have  tuition,  example,  and  freedom  for  development. 

With  the  improvement  of  the  economic  and  industrial 
conditions  in  Korea,  and  especially  with  the  enlarged  op- 
portunities for  foreign  commerce,  a  fairly  intelligent  and  well- 
to-do  middle  class  population  is  likely  to  result  from  the 
Japanese  Protectorate.  This  class  is  in  a  process  of  evolution 
in  Japan  itself.  It  is  essentially  the  product,  "natural" — so 
to  say — where  public  schools  exist  and  thrive,  and  where  the 
conditions  are  favorable  to  manufacture,  trade,  and  agri- 
culture on  any  large  scale.  But  especially  is  such  a  class 
one  of  the  most  sure  and  valuable  results  of  a  more  highly 
moral  and  spiritual  religion.  Christianity  distinctly  favors, 
when  it  becomes  practically  operative,  the  formation  of  a 
middle  class.  In  Korea  hitherto  there  have  been  only,  as  a 
rule,  corrupt  and  oppressive  rulers  and  officials,  and  ignorant, 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM       455 

oppressed,  and  degraded  multitudes.  The  foundation  of 
schools  of  the  modern  type,  especially  for  technical  and  man- 
ual training,  and  the  spread  of  Christianity,  will,  almost 
inevitably,  combine  to  raise  a  body  of  thrifty,  fairly  intelligent, 
and  upright,  self-respecting  citizens.  This  will  go  far 
toward  solving  the  problem  of  the  reform  and  redemption 
of  Korea. 

As  to  the  destiny  of  considerable  numbers  of  the  lower 
orders  of  the  people,  that  is  perhaps  unavoidably  true  which 
has  been  said  of  the  Korean  farmers :  "A  large  percentage  of  I 
them  are  past  all  hope  of  salvation."  The  professional 
robbers  and  beggars,  the  riotous  "pedlers,"  the  seditious 
among  the  disbanded  troops  or  the  "tiger  hunters,"  the  wild 
and  savage  inhabitants  of  the  mountainous  regions,  the  people 
who  live  by  thieving,  counterfeiting,  soothsaying,  divin- 
ing, and  other  illicit  ways,  will  have  to  submit,  reform,  or 
be  exterminated.  Doubtless,  many  of  them  will  prefer  to  be 
exterminated.  But  our  examination  of  the  previous  chapters 
encourages  and  confirms  the  hope  that  something  much 
better  than  this  is  possible  for  the  great  multitude  of  the 
peasants  among  the  Korean  people.  Marquis  Ito  has  set  his 
heart  on  helping  this  class  toward  a  much  improved  condi- 
tion. The  promise  of  this  he  has  distinctly  affirmed  in  both 
private  and  public  addresses,  and  has  indeed  done  all  that 
he  possibly  could  to  confirm.  It  is  this  also  upon  which  every 
true-hearted  missionary  is  most  intently  bent.  For  it  was  to 
these  same  multitudes — sheep  without  a  shepherd — that 
Jesus  came;  on  their  uplift  and  salvation  he  set  his  heart. 
It  would  be  contrary  to  the  experience  of  the  centuries  to 
suppose  that  an  enlightened  form  of  education  and  a  spiritual 
religion  could  combine  in  the  effort  to  raise 'the  multitudes  of 
any  nation,  without  resulting  in  a  large  measure  of  success. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  responsibility  for  a  successful 
and  relatively  permanent  solution  of  the  difficult  problem 


456  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

offered  by  the  geographical,  historical  and  other  important 
relations  of  Japan  and  Korea,  under  the  now  existing  Con- 
vention between  the  two  governments,  rests  most  heavily 
upon  the  Japanese  themselves.  ( They  have  at  last  "  a  free 
hand";  the  material  with  which  they  have  to  deal  in  order 
to  construct  a  new  and  improved  national  structure  is,  indeed, 
in  bad  and  largely  unsound  condition;  but  it  is  not  hopeless, 
and  it  is  not  radically  deficient  in  the  qualities  necessary  for  a 
sound  and  durable  structure.  Korea  is,  inherently  considered^ 
capable  of  reform;  but  at  present  it  is  not  capable  of  self- 
government,  much  less  of  self-instituted  and  wholly  self- 
controlled  reform.  Japan  has  taken  upon  herself  the  task 
of  furnishing  example,  stimulus,  guidance,  and  effective 
forces,  to  set  this  desirable  ideal  into  reality.  No  other 
nation  has  this  task;  no  other  nation  is  going  seriously  to 
interfere  with  Japan  in  its  task.  On  the  Japanese  Govern- 
ment and  the  Japanese  people  rests  the  heavy  responsibility 
of  securing  a  new  and  greatly  improved  national  life  for  the 
millions  of  the  Korean  peninsula;  if  they  succeed,  to  them 
will  chiefly  be  the  praise  and  the  profit;  if  they  fail,  to  them 
will  chiefly  be  the  shame  and  the  loss.  At  present,  and  in 
the  near  future,  it  is  the  last  of  these  three  sets  of  determining 
factors — namely,  the  policy  and  practice  of  Japan  herself 
with  reference  to  Korea — which  will  have  the  final  word  to 
say  in  the  solution  of  this  difficult  problem.  The  judgment 
of  the  civilized  world  is  already  pronounced  upon  this  matter. 
Korea  has  already  been  judged  impotent  and  unworthy  to 
be  trusted  with  the  management  either  of  her  own  internal 
affairs  or  of  her  relations  to  other  nations  in  the  Far  East 
and  in  the  world  at  large.  Japan  has  been  judged  to  be 
most  favorably  situated  and,  for  the  protection  of  her  own 
interests,  best  entitled  to  undertake  and  to  carry  through 
the  reform  and  reconstitution  of  Korea.  Japan  also  will 
in  the  future  be  judged,  by  the  judgment  of  the  civilized 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM        457 

world  and  by  the  verdict  of  history,  according  to  the  way  in 
which  she  fulfils  her  duties,  and  accomplishes  her  task,  in 
;  Korea. 

Will  Japan  prove  equal  to  the  management  and  the  de- 
velopment of  the  internal  resources,  civil  government,  and 
foreign  relations,  of  her  weaker  neighbor  in  such  a  way  as  to 
command  the  title  to  a  righteous  and  genuine  success?  No 
one  can  answer  this  question  with  a  perfect  confidence.  In 
many  important  respects  the  present  is  an  exceedingly  critical 
time  for  the  Japanese  Government  and  the  Japanese  nation 
in  respect  of  the  condition  of  its  own  internal  affairs.  The 
same  thing  is  true  of  Japan's  relations  to  foreign  nations. 
The  army  and  navy  deserved  and  won  praise  from  all  the 
civilized  world  for  its  bravery,  skill,  and  moderation  in  the 
last  war.  And  after  the  war  terminated  in  a  treaty  of  peace 
which,  while  it  wras  at  the  time  wisely  made  on  the  part  of 
the  real  leaders  of  the  nation,  was  exceedingly  disappointing 
to  the  military  and  naval  forces  and  to  the  people  at  large, 
the  whole  of  Japan,  with  the  exception  of  few  and  brief  de- 
monstrations of  resentment,  obeyed  the  wise  counsels  and 
injunctions  of  His  Imperial  Majesty,  its  Emperor.  In  obe- 
dience to  these  injunctions  the  nation  turned  quietly  and 
diligently  to  the  pursuits  of  peace.  But  in  these  pursuits 
Japan  is  by  no  means  so  far  advanced,  when  judged  by  mod- 
ern standards,  as  she  was  in  the  preparation  for,  and  conduct 
of,  war  both  by  land  and  by  sea.  In  manufactures  and  every 
form  of  industry,  in  trade  and  commerce,  in  the  devising  and 
management  of  the  means  of  communication,  in  education, 
science,  and  literature — everywhere  in  these  lines  of  peaceful 
national  activity  there  is  a  great  deficiency  of  trained  and 
trustworthy  helpers,  even  for  the  supply  of  her  own  immediate 
needs.  In  all  these  matters  of  national  interest  and  import, 
the  cry  of  her  leaders  is  for  the  right  sort  of  men.  How,  then, 
shall  Japan  at  the  present  juncture  supply  in  sufficient  num- 


IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

bers  the  workmen  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  hour  in  the  reform 
and  uplift  of  Korea? 

Moreover,  as  the  nation  of  Japan  advances  in  these  many 
lines,  it  is  inevitable  that  it  should  meet  the  same  difficulties, 
embarrassments,  and  dangers  which  in  yet  severer  form  are 
testing  the  leading  nations  of  Europe  and  America.  Trusts 
and  labor  unions — both  likely  to  become  the  enemies  of  the 
Empire  as  they  have  so  largely  in  the  United  States  become 
the  enemies  of  the  Republic — are  already  growing  apace. 
Even  more,  perhaps,  than  anywhere  else  outside  of  Russia 
and  parts  of  Germany,  insane  theories  of  ethics,  philosophy, 
and  religion,  are  captivating  the  minds,  and  controlling  the 
conduct,  of  not  a  few  of  her  students  and  other  young  men. 
As  in  the  United  States,  especially,  but  also  in  all  the  countries 
of  Europe,  the  old-fashioned  parental  control  and  discipline 
of  the  home-life  is  being  greatly  relaxed.  The  over-estimate 
of  so-called  science  and  the  conceit  of  modernity  are  working 
mischief  in  the  character  of  not  a  few.  And  the  life  of  the 
millions  of  the  people  is  not  yet  lifted  to  the  higher  grades  of 
morality  and  religion. 

With  regard  to  the  right  national  policy  toward  Korea 
there  has  also  been,  as  we  have  seen,  a  long-standing  difference 
of  opinion.  This  difference. still  exists,  although  it  was  for 
the  time  submerged  by  the  tide  of  enthusiastic  approval 
which  welcomed  the  policy  of  Marquis  Ito  when,  under  the 
grant  of  liberty  of  action  from  His  Imperial  Majesty,  with  the 
consent  of  the  Elder  Statesmen,  and  the  co-operation  of  Minis- 
ter Hayashi,  the  Convention  of  July,  1907,  was  successfully 
concluded.  Many  of  the  military  leaders,  however,  continue 
to  favor  a  more  punitive  and  war-like  attitude  toward  any 
resistance  on  the  part  of  the  Koreans.  The  mailed  fist,  with 
its  threats,  rather  than  the  open  palm,  with  its  promise  of 
friendly  assistance,  seems  to  them  better  fitted  to  the  situation. 
And  it  can  never  be  expected  that  there  will  be  a  cessation 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM        459 

of  the  desires  and  efforts  of  that  crowd  of  Japanese  ad- 
venturers, promoters,  and  unscrupulous  traders,  who  are  as 
ready  to  make  game  of  the  resources  of  Korea  as  are  the  smaller 
number  of  no  less  selfish  foreigners  residing  in  the  peninsula 
but  claiming  the  protection  for  their  schemes  of  other  nation- 
alities. Of  the  two,  the  latter  are  in  not  a  few  cases  much 
the  more  difficult  to  deal  with  in  a  manner  satisfactory  both 
to  the  honor  of  the  Japanese  Protectorate  and  also  to  the 
interests  of  the  Korean  people.  All  these  schemers,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  have  scanty  faith  in  the  slow  and  patient 
methods  of  education,  economic  and  judicial  reform,  which 
are  deliberately  chosen  and  persistently  followed  by  the 
present  Residency- General. 

Such  tendencies  as  those  just  mentioned  undoubtedly  make 
it  more  difficult  to  predict  with  confidence  the  success  of  Japan 
in  the  task  of  building  up  a  strong  and  healthy  national  existence 
out  of  the  so  largely  dead  and  decayed  material  furnished  to 
its  hand.  But  there  are  other  tendencies,  and  other  forms 
of  influence,  now  existing  and  growing  in  vigor  among  the 
Japanese  of  to-day,  which  strongly  encourage  the  hopeful 
view.  The  nation  emerged  from  the  war  with  Russia  in 
much  more  sober  and  thoughtful  frame  of  mind  than  that 
which  followed  upon  the  close  of  the  Chino- Japan  war. 
The  enormous  losses  of  life,  and  the  heavy  debt  left  upon 
them  by  the  expenditure  of  treasure,  tended  to  keep  down 
the  self-conceit  and  headiness  which  might  have  followed  an 
easier  victory.  And  in  spite  of  the  immediate  disadvantages 
growing  out  of  the  fact  that  the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of  Ports- 
mouth fell  so  far  below  their  expectations,  and  below  what 
seemed  to  them  at  the  time  their  just  deserts,  it  was  probably 
best  in  the  preparation  for  their  future  enterprises  and  strug- 
gles to  have  the  war  end  as  it  did.  Of  the  sincere  desire  of 
Japan  for  peace  with  the  whole  world,  no  one  who  knows  the 
nation  can  have  the  slightest  honest  doubt. 


460  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

There  has  also  been  a  great  awakening  of  interest  in 
moral  problems  since  the  Russo-Japanese  war.  This  interest 
is  not  confined  to  any  one  class.  In  all  the  Government 
schools,  of  every  description,  especial  attention  is  being  given 
to  ethics.  This  is  the  one  study  which  is  kept  most  constantly 
before  the  minds  of  the  pupils,  from  the  earliest  stages  of  their 
training  to  the  end  of  the  graduate  courses  in  the  university. 
Aware  of  the  unworthy  reputation  of  its  business  men,  in 
respect  of  business  morality,  the  commercial  schools,  higher 
and  lower,  government  and  private,  are  placing  emphasis 
upon  the  side  of  moral  instruction  and  discipline  in  prepara- 
tion for  business  life.  The  men,  now  past  middle  life,  who 
were  trained  to  the  respect  for  honor  and  the  feelings  of  devo- 
tion which  characterized  the  Samurai  (or  Puritan  knights) 
of  the  old  regime,  and  who  have  been  the  inspirers  and  guides 
of  all  that  has  been  best*  in  the  "New  Japan,"  are  still, 
though  they  are  growing  old  and  fewer  in  number,  controlling 
the  destinies  of  the  nation  They  have  the  confidence  of 
His  Imperial  Majesty,  the  Emperor  of  Japan,  who  steadily 
throws  the  great  weight  of  his  influence  upon  the  side  which 
favors  combining  these  ancient  virtues  with  a  modern 
education.  Among  the  men  in  middle  life  there  still  lingers, 
indeed,  much  of  those  influences  and  practices  which  have 
cost  the  New  Japan  so  dearly,  in  loss  of  reputation  and  of 
failure  to  make  good  use  of  some  of  her  choicest  opportunities. 
But  the  new  and  better  spirit  is  most  conspicuous  with 
the  younger  educated  men;  the  boys  and  girls  in  the  public 
schools  are  receiving  a  form  of  education  and  discipline 
which,  considering  Japan's  poverty  and  newness  of  resources, 
surpasses  that  of  any  other  country  in  the  civilized  world. 
Moreover,  the  ear  of  the  nation  is  open  to  religion  as  never 
before  in  its  history.  This  increased  feeling  of*need,  and  this 
higher  estimate  of  the  value  of  an  improved  morality  and  a 
more  spiritual  religion,  together  with  the  arousing  and 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM        461 

directing  of  the  nation's  energies  into  the  development  of  its 
material  resources  and  its  foreign  trade,  are  the  distinctive 
features  of  the  national  life  of  the  Japanese  at  the  present 
time. 

There  is  another  thing  about  the  temperament  of'  the 
Japanese  which  is  often  of  most  powerful  influence,  and  yet 
most  difficult  for  foreigners  to  appreciate.  This  is  the  force 
of  sentimental  considerations,  which  frequently  triumph  over 
those  considerations  that  are  regarded  by  other  peoples  as  of 
more  importance  in  practical  affairs.  Already,  the  senti- 
ments of  generosity,  of  pity,  and  of  a  sort  of  condescending 
kindness,  have  triumphed  in  the  management  of  Korean  af- 
fairs by  the  Japanese.  The  history  of  the  relations  of  the 
two  countries  has  amply  illustrated  this  fact.  These  senti- 
ments, which  are  certainly  dominant  to  a  large  extent  with 
the  Residency- General,  when  reenforced  by  the  growing  re- 
spect for  morality  and  religion,  will — it  seems  fair  to  sup- 
pose— be  even  more  powerful  in  the  future. 

Still  further,  Japan  has  successfully  overcome  many 
enormous  difficulties,  and  has  bravely  and  well  met  many  most 
threatening  emergencies,  during  the  last  fifty  years.  Over 
and  over  again  during  this  period,  her  case  has  seemed 
almost  desperate.  But  each  time  the  nation  has  rallied  and 
has  climbed  upward  to  a  higher  and  better  level  in  its  na- 
tional life.  True,  this  has  been  due,  to  a  large  extent,  to  the 
wisdom  and  skill  of  the  men  who  have  thus  far  led  the  nation. 
And  they  are  passing  off  the  stage.  That  the  younger  spirits 
who  are  coming  on  will  serve  their  day  with  equal  courage, 
wisdom,  and  success,  is  our  hope  and  our  belief.  Then 
there  will  be  assured  the  third  and  most  important  class  of 
the  factors  which,  in  their  combination  with  the  other  two, 
will  secure  the  new,  redeemed  Korea  in  friendly  relations, 
in  amity  and  unity,  with  Japan,  her  benefactor  as  well  as 
her  protector. 


462  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

/~v 

There  is  no  essential  reason  why  Japanese  and  Koreans 
~  should  not  become  one  nation  in  Korea.  Whether  this 
nation  will  be  called  Korea  or  Japan,  time  alone  can  tell. 
That  it  will  be  a  happier,  more  prosperous,  more  moral  and 
truly  religious  people  than  the  present  Korean  people,  there 
is  sufficient  reason  to  predict.  Indeed,  considering  the  brief 
time  which  has  elapsed  since  the  Convention  of  November 
17,  1905,  the  improvement  already  accomplished  under  the 
control  of  the  Japanese  Residency-General,  if  not  all  that 
could  be  wished,  has  been  all  that  could  reasonably  have 
been  expected.  The  two  peoples  have  learned  to  live  peace- 
fully and  happily  together,  in  certain  places,  both  of  Japan 
and  of  Korea,  in  past  times.  The  conditions  favoring  their 
union,  and  indeed  amalgamation,  in  Korea  itself  are  to-day 
incomparably  better  than  they  ever  were,  in  any  large  way, 
before.  If  Marquis  Ito,  and  his  sympathetic,  effective  sup- 
porters, at  home  and  in  the  Residency-  General,  can  be  sus- 
tained for  five  years,  and  can  be  succeeded  for  a  generation  by 
those  of  like  purpose  and  character,  then  the  problem  of  the 
relations  of  Japan  and  Korea  will  have  been  solved.  The 
present  opportunity  has  cost  both  countries  centuries  of 
trouble,  strife,  and  loss.  That  all  the  difficulties  should  be 
at  once  removed,  and  all  the  reforms  at  once  efficiently  be 
carried  out,  it  is  not  reasonable  to  expect.  But  now  that 
Japan  has  won  this  cherished  opportunity,  the  civilized  world 
requires,  and  the  civilized  world  may  expect,  that  the  oppor- 
tunity will  be  on  the  whole  well  improved.  Such  will  un- 
doubtedly be  the  issue  if  His  Imperial  Majesty  of  Japan,  the 
Marquis  Ito,  and  others  of  like  mind,  have  their  way. 
/^The  Korean  problem  has  become  a  part  of  the  larger 
-problem — namely,  the  realization  by  Japan  of  a  worthy 
-  national  ideal.  We  close,  then,  this  narrative  of  personal 
experiences,  and  its  following  presentation  and  discussion  of 
diplomatic  proceedings  and  historical  facts,  with  a  quotation 


THE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM        463 

that  expresses  our  hopes  and  our  beliefs,  and  that  is  taken 
from  a  bronze  tablet  which  is  to  stand  in  the  campus  of  the 
Government  School  of  Commerce  at  Nagasaki,  Japan: 

By  a  happy  union  of  modern  education  and  the  spirit  of  Bushido, 
inherited  from  countless  generations  of  ancestors,  Japan  has 
triumphed  in  war.  By  ceaseless  improvement  of  the  one,  com- 
bined with  enlargement  and  elevation  of  the  other,  she  must  win 
in  the  future  the  no  less  noble  and  difficult  victories  of  peace. 

In  Industry  and  Art,  in  Science,  Morals,  and  Religion,  may 
Dai  Nippon  secure  and  maintain  a  well-merited  place  among  the 
foremost  nations  of  the  civilized  world — thus  enjoying  prosperity 
at  home  and  contributing  her  full  share  toward  the  blessing  of 
mankind. 


APPENDIX  A 

PROTOCOL  SIGNED  FEBRUARY  23,  1904 

ARTICLE   I 

For  the  purpose  of  maintaining  a  permanent  and  solid  friend- 
ship between  Japan  and  Korea,  and  firmly  establishing  peace  in 
the  Far  East,  the  Imperial  Government  of  Korea  shall  place 
full  confidence  in  the  Imperial  Government  of  Japan  and  adopt 
the  advice  of  the  latter  in  regard  to  improvements  in  adminis- 
tration. 

ARTICLE  II 

The  Imperial  Government  of  Japan  shall  in  a  spirit  of  firm 
friendship  ensure  the  safety  and  repose  of  the  Imperial  House 
of  Korea. 

ARTICLE  III 

The  Imperial  Government  of  Japan  definitely  guarantees  the 
independence  and  territorial  integrity  of  the  Korean  Empire. 

ARTICLE  IV 

In  case  the  welfare  of  the  Imperial  House  of  Korea  or  the 
territorial  integrity  of  Korea  is  endangered  by  aggression  of  a 
third  Power  or  internal  disturbances,  the  Imperial  Government 
of  Japan  shall  immediately  take  such  necessary  measures  as  the 
circumstances  require;  and  in  such  cases  the  Imperial  Government 
of  Korea  shall  give  full  facilities  to  promote  the  action  of  the 
Imperial  Japanese  Government. 

465 


466  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

The  Imperial  Government  of  Japan  may,  for  the  attainment  of 
the  above-mentioned  object,  occupy,  when  the  circumstances 
require  it,  such  places  as  may  be  necessary  from  strategical  points 
of  view. 

ARTICLE  V 

The  Governments  of  the  two  countries  shall  not  in  future, 
without  mutual  consent,  conclude  with  a  third  Power  such  an 
arrangement  as  may  be  contrary  to  the  principles  of  the  present 
Protocol. 

ARTICLE  VI 

Details  in  connection  with  the  present  Protocol  shall  be  ar- 
ranged as  the  circumstances  may  require  between  the  Representa- 
tive of  Japan  and  the  Minister  of  State  for  Foreign  Affairs  of 
Korea. 


APPENDIX  B 

PROTOCOL  SIGNED  AUGUST  22,  1904 

ARTICLE  I 

The  Korean  Government  shall  engage  as  Financial  Adviser 
to  the  Korean  Government,  a  Japanese  subject  recommended  by 
the  Japanese  Government,  and  all  matters  concerning  finance 
shall  be  dealt  with  after  his  counsel  being  taken. 

ARTICLE  II 

The  Korean  Government  shall  engage  as  diplomatic  adviser 
to  the  Department  of  Foreign  Affairs,  a  foreigner  recommended 
by  the  Japanese  Government,  and  all  important  matters  concern- 
ing foreign  relations  shall  be  dealt  with  after  .his  counsel  being 
taken. 

ARTICLE  III 

The  Korean  Government  shall  previously  consult  the  Japanese 
Government  in  concluding  treaties  and  conventions  with  foreign 
Powers,  and  in  dealing  with  other  important  diplomatic  affairs, 
such  as  the  grant  of  concessions  to,  or  contracts  with,  foreigners. 


467 


APPENDIX  C    . 

CONVENTION  OF  JULY  24,   1907 

The  Governments  of  Japan  and  Korea,  with  a  view  to  the  early 
attainment  of  the  prosperity  and  strength  of  Korea,  and  to  the 
speedy  promotion  of  the  welfare  of  the  Korean  people,  have  agreed 
upon  and  concluded  the  following  stipulations: — 

ARTICLE  I. — The  Government  of  Korea  shall  follow  the  direc- 
tion of  the  Resident-General  in  connection  with  the  reform  of 
the  administration. 

ARTICLE  II. — The  Government  of  Korea  shall  not  enact  any 
law  or  ordinance,  or  carry  out  any  important  administrative 
measure,  except  with  the  previous  approval  of  the  Resident- 
General. 

ARTICLE  III. — The  judicial  affairs  of  Korea  shall  be  kept 
distinct  from  the  ordinary  administrative  affairs. 

ARTICLE  IV. — No  appointment  or  dismissal  of  Korean  officials 
of  the  higher  grade  shall  be  made  without  the  consent  of  the 
Resident-  General. 

ARTICLE  V. — The  Government  of  Korea  shall  appoint  to 
official  positions  under  it  such  Japanese  as  may  be  recommended 
by  the  Resident-General. 

ARTICLE  VI. — The  Government  of  Korea  shall  not  engage 
any  foreigner  without  the  consent  of  the  Resident-General. 

ARTICLE  VII. — The  first  clause  of  the  Agreement  between 
Japan  and  Korea,  signed  on  the  22d  day  of  the  8th  month  of  the 
37th  year  of  Meiji,  is  herewith  abrogated. 

468 


APPENDIX  469 

In  faith  whereof,  the  undersigned,  duly  authorized  by  their 
respective  Governments,  have  signed  this  agreement  and  affixed 
their  seals  thereto. 

(L.  S.)     MARQUIS  HIROBUMI  ITO, 

H.  I.  J.  Mys.  Resident-General. 
The  24th  day  of  the  yth  month  of  the  4oth  year  of  Meiji. 

(L.  S.)     Yi  WAN-YONG, 

H.  L  K.  M's.  Minister,  President  of  State. 
The  24th  day  of  the  yth  month  of  the  nth  year  of  Kwang-mu. 

[The  clause  in  the  Protocol  of  August,  1904,  which  is  declared 
abrogated  by  the  seventh  article  of  the  new  Convention,  apparently 
refers  to  the  promise  of  the  Korean  Government  to  engage  a 
Japanese  subject  as  their  official  Financial  Adviser.  It  was,  of 
course,  rendered  unnecessary  by  the  new  Convention.] 


APPENDIX  D 

SUMMARY  OF  THE  MOST  RECENT  MEASURES  FOR 

THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  THE  KOREAN 

GOVERNMENT 

The  revised  Organic  Regulations  of  the  Korean  Government, 
published  by  an  extra  of  the  Official  Gazette  (December  23,  1907), 
cover  the  five  Administrative  Departments  for  Home  Affairs,  Fi- 
nance, Justice,  Education,  and  Agriculture,  Commerce  and  In- 
dustry. As  for  the  Cabinet  and  War  Office,  they  had  not  as  yet 
reported  any  changes  introduced  in  their  Regulations.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  particular  Organic  Regulations  for  each  department 
there  are  Regulations  common  to  all  the  Departments,  the  War 
Office  not  being  excepted.  The  latter  Regulations  consist  of  21 
articles  which  outline  the  responsibility  and  duty  of  the  Ministers, 
Vice-Ministers,  and  other  officials,  and  fix  the  date  for  the  enforce- 
ment of  all  the  revised  Regulations  for  January  i,  1908.  Regu- 
lations for  the  organization  of  the  different  offices  under  the  De- 
partments of  Home,  Finance,  and  Justice  were  promulgated  at  the 
same  time,  including  the  Provincial  Governor's  Office,  Metro- 
politan Police  Office  and  Customs  Office. 

To  give  a  brief  epitome  of  the  Regulations  for  each  adminis- 
trative department:  The  Home  Office  is  to  contain  three  bureaus 
for  local  affairs — Police,  Engineering,  and  Hygienics,  with  a  Di- 
rector for  each.  The  rest  of  the  staff  consists  of  12  secretaries,  5 
commissioners,  5  engineering  experts,  3  translators,  62  clerks,  10 
police  sergeants,  5  assistant  engineering  experts  and  a  number  of 
policemen.  The  Finance  Department  contains  the  three  bureaus 
of  Revenue,  Accounts,  and  Managing  Finance,  each  with  a  Di- 

470 


APPENDIX  471 

rector.  Thirteen  secretaries,  7  commissioners,  2  translators,  and 
100  clerks  constitute  the  staff  of  this  Department.  The  Depart- 
ment of  Justice  will  have  bureaus  for  Civil  and  Criminal  Affairs, 
and  each  bureau  is  controlled  by  a  Director.  The  regular  staff 
of  this  department  comprises  9  secretaries,  4  commissioners,  3 
translators,  and  40  clerks.  In  the  Department  of  Education  there 
are  bureaus  for  School  Affairs  and  for  Edition  and  Compilation, 
with  a  Director  each.  The  regular  staff  includes  7  secretaries,  4 
commissioners,  3  engineering  experts,  28  clerks,  and  6  assistant 
engineering  experts.  The  Department  of  Agriculture,  Commerce 
and  Industry  will  be  divided  into  five  bureaus — namely,  Agricul- 
ture, Commercial  and  Industrial,  Forestry,  Mining,  and  Marine 
Products;  and  each  bureau  has  a  Director  at  its  head.  The 
regular  staff  of  this  Department  includes  8  secretaries,  5  com- 
missioners, 15  technical  experts,  i  translator,  49  clerks,  and  60 
assistant  technical  experts. 

In  addition,  each  Department  has  a  Minister's  Chamber,  and  a 
private  secretary  will  be  appointed  to  each  Minister  of  State. 

The  Regulations  for  the  Financial  Department  provide  for  the 
creation  of  a  Temporary  Bureau  for  investigation  of  the  national 
resources,  with  a  staff  consisting  of  a  Director,  a  secretary,  3 
commissioners,  and  5  technical  experts. 

More  detailed  regulations  for  the  different  offices  under  these 
departments  are  to  be  issued  later. 

The  most  recent  advices  from  Korea  report  that  the  rioting, 
arson,  and  murder,  headed  by  the  disbanded  Korean  soldiers,  is 
greatly  diminished,  and  that  the  country  is  reverting  to  its  normal 
condition  so  far  as  deeds  of  disorder  and  violence  are  concerned. 
The  visit  of  the  Crown  Prince  of  Japan  greatly  gratified  the  pride 
and  appeased  the  fears  of  the  Imperial  family  and  Yang-bans  of 
Korea.  Before  leaving  Seoul,  Prince  Ito  laid  the  corner-stone  of 
the  new  building  of  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  in  that 
city.  The  Crown  Prince  of  Korea,  the  son  of  Lady  Om,  whose 
guardianship  Prince  Ito  has  taken  upon  himself,  accompanied  by 
Ito,  arrived  in  Tokyo,  where  he  is  to  be  placed  in  the  Peers  School, 
and  was  received  with  distinguished  honors  both  by  the  Imperial 
Family  of  Japan  and  by  the  populace.  The  reports  also  show 


472  IN  KOREA  WITH  MARQUIS  ITO 

that  the  trade  relations  have  had  a  significant  increase  between 
the  two  countries;  but  the  most  significant  item  is  this:  the  ex- 
ports of  Korean  products,  which  are  for  the  most  part  rice  and 
beans,  exceed  the  imports  from  Japan  by  some  3,000,000  yen. 
The  establishment  of  friendly  relations  between  the  two  countries 
appears,  therefore,  to  be  moving  forward  rapidly;  and  the  polit- 
ical and  economical  redemption  of  the  peninsula  appears  to  have 
been  successfully  begun.  The  first  and,  of  necessity,  most  doubt- 
ful and  difficult  in  the  stages  of  the  Passing  of  the  Old  Korea 
may  therefore  be  said  to  have  been  already  accomplished. 


INDEX 


AGRICULTURE,  state  of,  92 /.,  122 /., 
I27/->  3OI/>  3°3>  3°4/-;  founding 
Station  and  School  of,  I22/.,  126, 
302 

Alexeieff,  M.  Kir,  doings  of,  in  Ko- 
rea, 224/. 

Allen,  H.  N.  (Acting  Minister),  on 
education  in  Korea,  327 

An  Chung-ho,  107 

BELL,  the  Great,  at  Seoul,  26,  3i/., 

J79/- 
Bethell,  Mr.,  Editor  Korean  Daily 

News,  158 

Bingham,  Minister,  IQ7/. 
Bishop,  Mrs.,  quoted,  390 
Brinkley,  quoted,  184,  192,  193 
Brown,  Mr.  J.  McLeavy,  Director  of 

Customs,  224/.,  360 
Buddha,  "The  Great  White,"  1377. 
Buddhism,  condition  of,  in  Korea, 

i33/->  137 
Bunki,  nature  of,  342 /. 

CHEMULPO,  visit  to,  ii3/.;  popula- 
tion of,  114;  appearance  of,  ii4/.; 
harbor  of,  115 

China,  influence  of,  on  Korea,  i8i/., 
190,  194,  202/.,  253,  296;  its 
claims  of  suzerainty,  189 /.,  191  /., 
194,  i96/.,  199,  203,  211  f.,  2i6/.; 
soldiers  of,  in  Korea,  203  /.,  205 /., 
214;  war  with,  2i4/.;  present  con- 
dition of,  444/. 

Cockburn,  Mr.,  British  Consul-Gen- 
eral,  i3i/-,  i34/- 

Confucianism,  of  Korea,  character- 
ized, i8i/.,  296 

Conventions  (see  also  Treaties),  with 
China,  210  /.;  Yamagata-Loban- 
off,  224/.;  of  Nov.,  1904,  with 
Korea,  252-279,  414;  of  July, 
1907,  419,  43l/.,  4335  disorder  fol- 
lowing, 434/. 


Councillor,   in  Privy   Council,   new 

office  created,  82 
Court,  the  Korean,  corruptions  of, 

15 1/.,    297,    452;    cowardice    of, 

i82/.;     "Purification"     of,     297, 

45  2/- 
Crown  Prince  (now  Emperor),  298 

note 
Curzon,   Hon.   George  N.,   quoted, 

402 
Daily  News,   the  Korean,   42,    52, 

62/.;    announces    commission    to 

The    Hague,   837.;    attacks   Dr. 

Jones,  355 

EDUCATION,  condition  of,  in  Korea, 
325-339;  earlier  efforts  at  reform 
of,  327/.;  modern  organization  of, 
33°/>  335/-/  missionary  work  in, 
33  2/.;  attitude  of  Koreans  toward, 
334;  interest  of  Japan  in,  336 

Ellis,  Mr.  Wm.  T.,  367 

Emperor,  of  Korea  (now  ex-Emper- 
or), audience  with,  44/.,  I47/./ 
personal  appearance  of,  44/.; 
message  to,  I48/.;  character  of, 
i5i/.,  i54/.,  158,  i75/.,  2357., 
282/.,  286 f.;  renounces  suzerainty 
of  China,  2i6/.;  flees  to  Russian 
Legation,  220;  subsequent  be- 
havior, 233/.;  treachery  of,  242, 
244,  246,  298,  361,  415,  4287.;  re- 
ceives letter  from  Emperor  of 
Japan,  254;  his  part  in  Conven- 
tion of  1904,  2$6f.,  259/.,  268 /., 
274/.,  41 5/.;  abdication  of,  423, 
428 

Epworth  League,  fate  of,  in  Korea, 

3.8 
Eui  Wha,  Prince,  17,  75/. 

FOULK,  Ensign  George  C.,  report  of, 
to  United  States,  2oo/.,  203,  204 /.; 
quoted,  376 


473 


474 


INDEX 


Fusan,  town  of,  I5/.,  I4O/.,  142; 
public  park  in,  15,  142;  reception 
at,  i6/.,  I40/.,  143;  lectures  at, 
142;  schools  of,  142;  revolt  of 
settlers  in,  185 

GALE,  Dr.,  quoted,  378 
General  Sherman,  the  visit  of  the,  to 
Korea,  191 

HAGUE,  Peace  Conference  of,  Ko- 
rean Commissioners  to,  83/.,  298, 
414,  416;  Japanese  press  concern- 
ing, 4i8/.;  action  of  Tokyo  Gov- 
ernment, 419 

Hai-tai,  the,  28 

Hall,  of  "Audience,"  29;  of  "Con- 
gratulations," 30 

Hamilton,  Angus,  quoted,  377 

Han,  Korean  Prime  Minister  ^1904, 
263 /.,  266  note,  267 

Hanyang,  town  of,  predecessor  to 
Seoul,  22,  32 

Harris,  Bishop  M.  C.,  quoted,  397 

Hay,  Secretary,  efforts  of,  23 6/. 

Hayashi,  Minister  in  Korea,  260, 
263,  269;  special  Ambassador  to 
Korea,  4197.,  421 /. 

Hershey,  quoted,  2i9/.,  223/. 

Hideyoshi,  the  invasion  of,  i5/.,  25, 
9o/.,  i83/.,  iS;/.;  war  with 
Prince  Mori,  145 

Hiro-Mura,  trip  to,  6/. 

Hulbert,  Mr.  Homer  B.,  leaves  Seoul, 
837.;  on  Korean  history,  182; 
quoted,  183,  236,  289,  290,  291, 
293»  295,  336;  charges  of,  ex- 
amined, 375 

ICHIHARA,  Mr.,  President  of  "Econ- 
omies Club,"  55/. 

II  Chin-hoi  (Society) ,  memorial  of,  to 
Ministers,  76/.;  to  Residency- 
General,  43O/. 

Independence  Arch,  43,  132 

Independence  Hall,  43;  lecture  at, 

52 

Industrial  Training  School,  founded 
at  Seoul,  1 28/. 

Inouye,  Count,  negotiates  treaty  with 
Korea,  io7/.;  later  visit  of,  as 
ambassador,  205 /.;  administra- 
tion in  Korea,  218  /.;  views  on 
Commission  to  The  Hague,  4i7/. 


Ito,  Prince  Hirobumi,  invitation  of, 
3/.,  8/.,  14,  fc7/.,  4o/.,  56;  atti- 
tude of,  toward  Korea,  8/.,  55/.,  64, 
139,  157,  i64/.,  1697.,  226,k395/.; 
work  of,  in  Korea,  86/.,  i68/.,' 
I73/,  253/.,  287/.,  298,  3oi/., 
330/.,  34i/.,  355/>  412;  nego- 
tiates  treaty  with'  "China,  I94/., 
2io/.;  speech  of  (1898),  226/.; 
visits  Peking,  23 1 ;  jand  St.  Peters- 
burg, 232;  negotiates  Conven- 
tions with  Korea,  25 2/.,  256,  26o/.; 
in  Convention  of  1907,  421,  424, 
43 2/.;  enlarged  plans  of,  441; 
visits  Tokyo,  Aug.,  1907,  442 

lyeyasu,  treatment  of  Korea  by, 
i89/. 

JAPANESE,  characteristics  of,  i/.,  55, 
i2i/.,  183,  43i/.,  454,  457;  in- 
vasion by,  i5/.,  25,  183 /.;  settle- 
ments of,  in  Korea,  i5/.,  19,  114, 
I43/.,  45o/.;  as  an  audience,  55, 
97;  relations  of,  to  Koreans,  55/., 
59/.,  91,  io9/.,  n9/.,  i5o/., 
i7i/.,  202/.,  368/.,  393/.,  458; 
ladies  in  Seoul,  577. 

Japan  Times,  quoted,  4i8/. 

Jones,  Dr.  G.  Heber,  quoted,  22,  23, 
27,  89,  i68/.,  179,  425;  assistance 
by,  in  work,  48,  49,  52/.,  59,  ii3/.; 
interview  of,  with  Marquis  Ito, 
63/.;  attack  upon,  355  note 

Justice,  the  Public,  previous  condi- 
tion of,  340/.,  343,  345,  3477., 
369;  use  of  torture,  34Q/.,  375/; 
attempts  at  reform  of,  34i/., 
343/.,  349/-/  police  system,  345/-/ 
courts  of,  347 /. 

KABAYAMA,  Admiral,  visits  Korea, 

205 /• 

Kang,  chief  Eunuch,  154 
Kenochi,  Mr.,  Resident  at  Chemul- 
po, 117 
Kikuchi,   Mr.,   Resident  at  Pyeng- 

yang,  100 

Kimmei,  Korean  envoy  to,  186 
Kim  Ok-kiun,  31;    murder  of,  213 
Kim   Tuk-nyung,    Korean   general, 

183 

Korea,  country  of,  i9/.,  92/.,  H3/., 
301;  hunting  tigers  in,  I2O/.;  his- 
torical relations  of,  to  Japan,  179- 


INDEX 


475 


251;  reasons  for  its  degradation, 
i8o/.;  treaty  of  1876  with,  182; 
trade  relations  with  Japan,  i85/., 
356;  control  of,  by  Japan,  242  /., 
45  2/.;  resources  of,  3007,  3037., 
3io/.,  322/.;  reforestation  of, 
3o6/.,  3087.;  mines  of,  3097., 
36i/.;  customs  of,  3137.,  324/; 
finances  of,  3157.,  3i8f.,  320/> 
356/.;  debt  of,  324;  foreign  trade 
of,  3567 

Koreans,  the  condition  of,  87,  60, 
1587,  1607,  1807.;  characteris- 
tics of,  867)  I05/->  I20>  I29,  1  6-27  > 
1807,  2897,  2957,  4287,'  inde- 
pendence of,  87,  169,  1747? 
2167,  2967,  336  note;  intrigues 
of,  8,  107,  66,  687,  8S/-,  i°5» 
1717,  2017,  2187,  3717.;  appear- 
ance of,  1  8,  477,  292,  2945  super- 
stitions of,  237,  131,  2937,  391; 
burial  places  of,  237,  i32/;  as 
an  audience,  47/,  5i/;  women, 
577,  867,  2945  murder  Japanese, 
202,  206  7,  399,  425;  as  workmen, 
2927,"  emigration  of,  3647.,*  re- 
ligious condition  of,  3907.,  392/- 

Korean  Review,   quoted,   315,   327, 


Kublai  Khan,  Embassy  of,  187 
Kuroda,  General"  makes  treaty  with 

Korea,  182,  1977 
Kuruda,  Mr.,  villa  of,  1417 
Kwon,  Minister  of  War,  attempted 

assassination  of,  667,   7°//  ad- 

dress of,  at  Suwon,  127 

LADY  OM,  address  at  school  of,  547, 

155 
Lawrence,  Prof.,  on  Convention  of 

Feb.,  1904,  2477 
Laws,  absence  of  code  of,  341  f.;  af- 

fecting   real    estate,    3427;    and 

mines,  3627 
Li    Hung    Chang,     13;    negotiates 

treaty  with  Japan,  209 

MANCHURIAN  Question,  the,   229- 

233,  236 
Megata,  Mr.,  appointed  "Financial 

Adviser,"    2467,    315;    work   of, 

2467,    301,    308,    3157,    3187, 

3207,  355 
Min,  the  Family,  200,  2017,  2037. 


Min  Hyung-sik,  Vice-Minister  of 
Education,  51,  72,  74 

Min  Yung-whong,  commits  suicide, 
2787 

Ministry,  the  Korean,  change  in 
personnel,  j6f.;  and  character  of 
office,  807,  246,  252;  position  of, 
in  Russian  Legation,  222f.;  be- 
havior of,  in  1907,  420,  421 

Missions,  success  of,  in  Korea,  61, 
937,  4047,  4087,  441;  founding 
of,  116,  401,  403,  4047.;  schools  of, 
3327.;  differing  views  as  to,  3887, 
400;  need  of  civil  support,  3947, 
412;  work  of  woman  in,  400 >f.; 
persecution  of,  by  Koreans,  401, 
402;  the  Roman  Catholic,  4037.; 
the  Protestant,  4047.;  "Great  Re- 
vival" among  the,  4087,  4io7- 

Missionaries,  attitude  of,  587,  60, 
1667,  3967>  398;  complaints  of, 
627,  368;  educational  work  of, 
3327.;  difficulties  of,  3927.;  4017.; 
martyrs  among,  4017 

Mollendorff,  M.  von,  action  of,  in 
Korea,  2077 

Mongols,  invasions  of,  1847 

Moore,  Digest  of  International  Law, 
quoted,  2117 

NAGASAKI,  visit  to,  127 
Nam-san,  view  from,  23,  40;  wild- 
cats on,  397 

Noble,  Dr.,  93,  102,  106,  no 
Norman,  Henry,  quoted,  377 

PAGODA,  the  Marble,  327;  the  "Pa- 
goda Incident,"  384 

Pak,  Acting  Prime  Minister,  at- 
tempted assassination  of,  66;  re- 
signs, 77;  action  as  Minister  of 
Foreign  Affairs,  264,  2687. 

Pak  Yong-hio,  conduct  of,  4287 

Pak  Yong-hwa,  assassination  of, 
68 

Palaces,  the  "Special  South,"  27; 
the  "Mulberry,"  277,  287;  the 
"Palace  of  Beautiful  Blessing," 
287,'  East  Palace,  307,'  the  pres- 
ent residence,  described,  447, 

I53/- 
Pavloff,    M.,    Minister    to    Korea, 

2277,  2377 
"Peony  Point,"  visit  to,  1007 


476 


INDEX 


Po-an,  Secret  Society,  suppressed, 
244 

Prince,  the  "little"  (Son  of  Lady 
Om),  appearance  of,  44/.;  made 
Crown  Prince,  441 

Protectorate,  the  Japanese,  effect  of, 
on  business,  ii8/.,  352/.;  Proto- 
cols establishing,  245/.,  248,  253, 
433;  Prof.  Lawrence  on,  2477.;  as 
arranged  in  Nov.,  1904,  2537., 
2647.,  27  2/.;  false  reports  con- 
cerning, 253  note  /.,  378/.;  as  af- 
fecting foreign  relations,  352/., 
354/.;  extended  to  home  affairs, 
433/v  prospects  of,  4467. 

Protocols,  with  Russia  (1896),  224; 
Nishi-Rosen  (1898),  225;  with 
Korea  (Feb.,  1904),  2457.,  255, 
273;  and  (Aug.,  1904),  2457.,  248, 

255>  273 

Puk  Han,  as  mountain  fortress,  22, 
133;  excursion  to,  13  i/.;  walls  of, 

I33>  *35f->'  flora  of.>  T34 
Pyeng-yang,  invitation  to,  43  /; 
history  of,  9o/.,  ioo/.;  Japanese 
in,  91,  97/.,  383  /.;  visit  to,  go/., 
no;  missions  in,  63/.,  io7/.,  no; 
audiences  in,  93/.,  96/.,  107;  im- 
provements in,  98/.,  101;  theolog- 
ical students  of,  IO2/.,  104,  107  /.; 
Governor  of,  1037.;  stud-farm  at, 


QUEEN,  the  late,  her  assassination, 
30,  2i9/.;  character  of, 


RAILWAYS,  Fusan-Seoul,  i6/.,  i39/.; 
Seoul-Pyeng-yang,  92;  Seoul- 
Electric,  23O/.;  the  Sanyo,  246; 
construction  of,  in  Korea,  373/., 

379/- 

Resident-General  (see  also  Ito), 
interests  of,  8/.,  I22/.,  1297., 
i69/.,  i75/.,  social  influence  of, 
86/.;  creation  of  office  of,  270  /; 
scope  of  present  power  of,  452/. 

Reynolds.  Rev.  Mr.,  skill  as  linguist, 
48/. 

Rockhill,  Minister,  on  China's  suzer- 
ainty over  Korea,  igSf.;  on  the 
Manchurian  Question,  236 

Root,  Secretary,  recognizes  Japanese 
Protectorate,  249 

Russia,  Treaty  of,  with  Japan,  gf.; 


domination  of,  in  Korea,  221 /., 
227/.,  230/.,  236/.;  negotiations 
with,  239/. 

SAGA  Party,  the,  i93/. 

Saionji,    Marquis,    Ambassador    to 

Korea,  216 
Schools,  in  Korea,   i7/.,   142,  325, 

33°,  332,  335 

Scran  ton,  Dr.  W.  B.,  63,  404 
Seoul,  arrived  at,  i9/.;  aspects  of, 
2Q/.,   23,  34/.,   130;   meaning  of 
word,  22;  walls  of,  24/.;  gates  of, 
25/.;  palaces  of,  27/.;  lectures  at, 
43/->  54/;  foreigners  in,  8s/.;  in- 
fluence as  capital  city,  88/.;  de- 
parture from,  i39/. 
Seoul  Press,  the,  quoted,  66/.,  yo/., 

99/.,  I22/.,  i6o/.,  3oi/.,  415 
Shimonoseki,  Treaty  of,.  13 
Sill,  American  Minister,  report  of, 

2I4/. 

Son-o-gong,  26 

Sontag,  Miss,  20 

Speyer,  M.  de,  policy  of,  225 

Stevens,  Hon.  D.  W.,  140,  205  /.; 
on  Korean  complaints,  17 if.;  his 
account  of  Count  Inouye's  Em- 
bassy, 205-209;  on  outbreak  of 
war,  243;  appointed  "Adviser"  on 
Foreign  Affairs,  246;  quoted,  269, 
3*5>  342,  353,  37°,  376 

Suwon,  Agricultural  Station  and 
School  at,  122  f.,  126 /.;  excursion 
to,  I26/. 

TABLET,  the  Tortoise,  33 

Tai  Won  Kun,  the  quarrels  of,  with 

Queen,  26,  2oi/.,  218,  2i9/.,  284; 

builds  palace,  28,  306;  character 

of,    282/.,    401,    402;    persecutes 
.  Christians,  400,  401  /. 
Takezoye,  Minister  at  Korea,  405  /. 
Tokugawa,  Prince,  his  visit  to  Korea, 

75/,  88 
Tokugawas,  the,  their  treatment  of 

Korea,  iSg/. 

Tong  Hak,  rebellion  of,  2i3/.,  2i6/. 
Townsend,  Mr.  W.  D.,  116,  n8/. 
Treaties  (see  also  Conventions),  with 

Japan,  in   1876,   182,   i97/-;  the 

Shufeldt,  192;  Japan  and  China> 

2IO/. 


INDEX 


477 


Tsushima,  relations  of,  to  Korea,  15, 
185 

UNITED  STATES,  relations  of,  to  Ko- 
rea, IQI/.,  ipy/-,  199,  211  f.,  216, 
236,  249;  Foreign  Relations  (Re- 
ports), quoted,  216,  249;  recog- 
nizes Japanese  Protectorate,  2497. 

WAEBER,  M.,  Russian   Minister  in 

Korea,  223 

Wakayama,  visit  to,  8/. 
Walls,  of  Seoul,  24/.;  of  Puk  Han, 

133,  135 

Whigham,  quoted,  245,  296,  445  note 
Wilkinson,   The  Government  of  Ko- 
rea, quoted,  2i2/. 

YAGI,  Capt.,  i/. 

Yang-ban,  the  Korean,  39,  74,  156; 
baleful  influence  of,  ii2/.,  I56/., 
2&jf.;  character  of  certain,  de- 
scribed, 288 /.,  291 


Yi,  Korean  admiral,  183,  189 

Yi  Hy-eung  (see  Emperor,  now  ex- 
Emperor) 

Yi  Wan-yong,  appointed  Prime  Min- 
ister, 77/.;  action  of,  in  Nov., 
1004,  2647. ;  signs  Convention  of 
.1007,  432 

Yi  Yong-ik,  Emperor's  favorite,  235, 
243,  286 

Yi  Ypng-tai,  70,  73,  74 

Yomiuri,  Japanese  paper,  extract 
from,  i6jf. 

Young  Men's  Christian  Association, 
invitation  from,  387.,  42;  assist- 
ance of,  42/.,  53,  407;  lectures  at, 
43 f-,  47 /•»  54/-;  Korean  helpers 
of,  5o/.,  83/.;  subsidy  to,  396; 
success  of,  407 

Yuan  Shi  Kai,  doings  in  Korea,  31, 

2IO/.,  212 

Yun  Chi-ho,  Mr.,  39 
ZUMOTO,  Mr.,  13,  92,  113 


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